


For I Believe in Harbors at the End

by laurie_ky



Category: The Incredible Hulk (TV), The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: AU after Mystery Man, Drama, First Time, M/M, Romance, small fandom bang, spoiler alert for the series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-07 16:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 59,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurie_ky/pseuds/laurie_ky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack McGee, reluctant tabloid reporter, tracked the Hulk for years; meeting amnesiac John Doe might be a lead to the green monster. John thinks Jack looks familiar, but John's face is bandaged, so Jack can't identify him. Hoping to stir John's memories, Jack charters a plane to LA, to see a specialist in amnesia. When the plane crashes into dangerous wilderness, though, it's the start of a different relationship between the two men until Jack witnesses John Doe transforming into the Hulk to save Jack. </p><p>Now, he's even more intrigued with capturing the Hulk.  But then John calls him one day, desperate.  If Jack helps the man he'd been lovers with on that mountain, maybe John will finally give up the secret of his real identity to Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Art and Fanmix for "For I Believe In Harbors At The End"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/745573) by [Gryph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryph/pseuds/Gryph). 
  * Inspired by [Story cover: For I Believe in Harbors at the End](https://archiveofourown.org/works/750444) by [Teaotter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/pseuds/Teaotter). 
  * Inspired by [Rich Reflections.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12240327) by [mindbender (orphan_account)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/mindbender). 



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>  The title is a quote from _Look Homeward, Angel_ by Thomas Wolfe.  
>  Some dialouge is quoted from the show in the scene at Diane's island. 
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> I very much appreciate Teaotter's beautiful story banner and Gryphon2K lovely chapter headings and fanmix. Please check them out; they're wonderful.

“O lost, O far and lonely, where?”  
 _Look Homeward, Angel_

* * *

Jack had been surprised, to put it mildly, the first time that John Doe, the Hulk, had contacted him by phone.

“Jack, you've got a call from a guy who says he knows you. He only gave me his first  
name,” Judy had told him when she rang his office.

“I'm finishing up a story, and Mark is breathing down my neck for it. Take a message, I'll call him back later.”

“He said it was really important. Said there was a woman's life at stake.”

Jack sighed. “What's his name?”

“John. He's calling from a payphone.”

“Oh, all right. I'll take the call.”

While the call was being transferred, he finished typing the last sentence on the story his editor had strong-armed him into doing on a ghost ship, the Mary English. He was stuck here at the National Register, but he still tried his best to do some actual investigative reporting for his stories.

The fishing schooner went down in a storm in 1932, a mile from Calumet Harbor. All hands but one had perished, and the doomed sailors and ship would reappear every anniversary of the tragedy. Or so the throngs of gullible Chicago sightseers fervently believed. Jack had interviewed the latest batch of true believers, writing the story in true tabloid fashion, but he'd also met with the granddaughter of the one survivor, who related what grandpop had told her about that day, and thrown in some actual facts about the sinking. He had kept some standards when he'd had to take this job.  
His editor walked into his office and he handed the story to him. Mark walked out, reading as he went. Mark was the only reason Jack tolerated working at this rag and he gave Jack a thumbs up as Judy told him his caller was on the line.

“Jack McGee?” The man's voice was pleasant, but husky. He did sound familiar. 

“Yeah. You said you knew me?” Jack started sorting through the debris on his desk, pitching a half eaten sandwich in the trash.

“Please, I don't know who else to call. A woman is being hurt and I'm afraid her boyfriend is going to kill her one of these days.”

“Why don't you call the police, pal?” Jack asked. 

The man said, his voice anxious, “The police are part of the problem, and I can't, I can't--” 

Jack dropped the papers he'd gathered to toss in the trash all over his desk.

“John Doe. I'll be damned. No, I guess you don't want to talk to the cops.”

“Jack, please... will you hear me out?”

Jack could hear the near panic in John's voice, as he asked Jack for help. Oh, not for himself. Jack suspected that John would rather swallow live coals than beg him for anything. Except, maybe, for Jack to leave him alone.

“Yeah, John. Talk to me.”

John told him about the woman he'd tried to help. The police and the judge were firmly on her boyfriend's side: every time she left town the cops pulled her over over and arrested her, kept in jail to teach her a lesson. The judge would release her back to the boyfriend, and she'd be trapped again.

John had worked for her boyfriend, delivering flowers. She'd begged for his help, and John had agreed to help her leave town. He told Jack that he'd planned on leaving the van in the next town after smuggling her out, then he'd hitchhike out of the state. The woman was going to catch a bus and go to her sister's house in Nashville.

They were caught. She'd been taken away in a police car and John had turned into the creature when the cops had beat him up. He wasn't sure what had happened with the woman. He'd come back to himself many miles away from where the van had been forced to stop. 

“What do you want me to do about this, John?” he'd interrupted.

“Couldn't you get somebody interested in the corruption in that town? Somebody to help her? Please, Jack. He hurts her.” 

John had sounded so weary, and Jack had sighed. He wasn't anybody's caped crusader; he was a reporter. But he'd flashed on how John had pulled him on that makeshift sled when they'd both been trapped by wildfire in the mountains, Jack helpless with a broken leg. John had never given up. Jack had called him an idealist.

That had been before he'd seen John transform into the Hulk. Well, he'd seen most of John's amazing transformation. John's face had been bandaged from the car accident that had left him a confused amnesiac.

The Hulk, _John,_ had saved him. Carried him in his huge green arms away from the fire and given him safely to a firefighter fleeing with his family before running off.

He supposed that he owed John for saving him. Even if he hadn't, he didn't think he could turn John away when he asked for help. If he could get John to trust him, he could talk him into turning himself in; Jack would see that John got the help he obviously needed to stop the metamorphosis that kept him a fugitive.

John had sounded relieved when Jack told him he'd look into the allegations against the police and judge in that little Indiana town. And in truth, there was a story there that would sell papers. That would make his editor happy.

Then he'd given John his home phone number. 

“No. You'll try to trap me, trace the call.”

Jack had snorted. “And how would I do that?” He leaned back in his chair and stuck his feet on the desk.

“The police--”

“Do you honestly think the cops are going to help me?”

“Well--”

“Use your head, John. I ask the police to trace your call so I can locate a huge green man. Sure, they'd go for it -- when pigs fly.”

There was a sound on the other end that resembled a choked off laugh.

“Look, it would take a day or so, but I could probably get the phone company to tell me where you called from after we hung up, or get a trap and trace, but I know you, John. You'll be long gone by the time we get an address.”

“Then why?” John had sounded puzzled.

“I'll be honest with you. I'd like the chance to talk you into getting help. You're being selfish by keeping such an incredible scientific discovery to yourself. I'd like to change your mind about that, too.”

“What I become would be dangerous knowledge in the wrong hands, Jack.” 

John still sounded tired, worn out, his voice as raspy as when Jack had first met him, when his throat had been hurt in the car accident that had left him without his memories. 

“Sounds like a rationalization to me.”

“No, it's not. It's the truth.”

“Okay, maybe it's the truth. And maybe you've forgotten what we did together on that mountain, but I haven't. I called you my friend, and you agreed, John.”

“I didn--”

Jack didn't let him finish. “One week together, injured and hungry, cold and tired, remember?”

“I remember.”

“Well, do you remember my hands on you, and how good I made you feel? Do you remember returning the favor? We had the start of something good, John. Maybe I don't want to totally lose what we began.”

“Jack, we can't ever be like that again.”

“I'm not ready to write us off. But forget the sex. You can call when you want to talk to a friend, okay? I'll keep trying to find you, John, but I promise you, talking on the phone won't be the way.”

“You promise. How can I believe you?” 

Jack shrugged, not caring if John couldn't see him. “I guess you'll have to trust me.”

“You're asking a lot from me, to trust you.”

“You called me, John. You trust me enough to ask for my help. I'm just saying, you can trust me about the phone calls, too.”

John was silent for a moment until Jack heard him coughing.

Jack said, “Anyway, I'll try to help your friend, and you keep my number. I'm guessing you don't have many friends, the way you keep running.”

“So?”

“With me, you won't have to pretend. I know you're the Hulk. You can call collect if you need to. Call me back in a week and I'll tell you how the investigation into police corruption in Glenhaven is going, and if your friend is safe.”

“But your newspaper will still keep the price on my head?” John might have phrased that as a question, but from his tone of voice, he already knew the answer.

“Yes. If you would just turn yourself in, we can find help for you.”

“No. They'd try to cage me, do experiments, and I wouldn't be able to control what happens to me. I shouldn't even be arrested. The creature didn't kill Dr. Banner or Elaina Marks.”

Jack said, “Then you don't have anything to be concerned about. You're trying to fix this, aren't you?”

John didn't say anything.

“John, you can't figure out a cure on your own, not while you're on the run. You need equipment. How can you pay for it when you can't even pay for your meals sometimes?”

“How did--. Never mind.”

“I promise if you just stop running and turn yourself in, I'll help you.”

“I can't, Jack. I just can't. But thank you.”

He'd hung up then. Jack had gone home and poured himself a stiff drink. He desperately wanted a cigarette, but he'd been trying to cut back. Dealing with John was so God damn frustrating. He doubted he'd ever hear from him again.

But he had.

A week later, John had called him back at home in the evening, the sounds of a highway in the background. Jack had been able to tell him that the woman he'd been worried about was safely housed in a woman's shelter in a different state and that checking into the corruption of the town's officials had opened a huge can of worms. Other people were coming forward with their own tales of ill treatment and coercion, emboldened now that they thought they would be believed. 

John had sounded sick, breaking off to cough deeply before asking for more details about the story.

Jack had answered all of his questions before asking one of his own.

“John, just how sick are you? Have you seen a doctor?” Jack was sitting on the side of his bed, the notebook he'd been using to sketch out ideas for a novel abandoned when he'd recognized John's voice.

John had laughed, but there was no mirth to the sound.

“No. I'll be okay.”

“I'm not up on medical things, not like you are, John, but even I can recognize bronchitis or pneumonia when I hear a cough like that. What's the problem? Not enough money?”

John had been silent. 

“Well, what about going to a free clinic then?”

“Maybe. I'll see if there's one wherever I end up. Jack, I have to go, I don't have any more change to put in the phone.”

“Give me the number, I'll call you back.”

“Why?” John had sounded puzzled.

“Look. I worry about you. I know you're sick, do you at least have enough money to buy food, pay for a place to stay?”

“You've shot at me with sedative darts but you wonder if I'm hungry,” John said, disbelief and bemusement in his voice. “Jack, you can't act like you're my friend and then try to trap me.”

“I want back what we had in the mountains, John.”

“What we had is gone. You're trying to capture me, Jack!”

“Yes I am. I'm not going to apologize, either. But we clicked, you know we did, and maybe, if you'll give yourself up and let me help you, we can have it back.” 

“Oh Jack. No. We can't. Are you forgetting the part where you're trying to catch me?”

“I'm not forgetting anything. Okay, when I first went after the Hulk, I didn't know he was you. A man. And you are dangerous. I've seen you when you change. You're so strong, and so angry. I've seen the destruction that follows you.”

“I haven't really hurt anybody though.”

“Except for David Banner and Elaina Marks.”

“I didn't hurt or kill them.” John said it quietly, and if Jack didn't know better, he'd think he was hearing the honest truth. The poor bastard.

“John, you're just hiding the truth from yourself about their deaths.”

“I'm not deluding myself, Jack. I didn't kill them!”

“Look, I know you didn't mean to do it. You don't know what you're doing when you're the Hulk, right? You told me you'd blacked out when you obviously had changed to the Hulk when we were together on the mountain. The rest of the people you've tossed or shoved were lucky they got off with bruises.”

“As far as I know, every time I've done that it was in self-defense.”

“But you can't guarantee that the Hulk won't hurt someone seriously in the future.”

John was silent.

“Stop running, John. There have to be scientists in the government, or maybe back at the Culver Institute, who could help you. Maybe Dr. Banner's research holds the answer.”

John laughed again, a bitter sharp sound that ended in another coughing fit. 

“Dr. Banner's research is useless for helping me--” 

John's voice was swapped for a dial tone. Jack swore; he couldn't call him back because John hadn't trusted him enough to give him the number to contact him.

He waited by the phone for a while, in case, John scraped up some more change, but when his apartment stayed silent, he gave up and went to bed.

In the dark, he deliberately thought back to John lying dazed in a hospital bed. He'd been soft-spoken, obviously intelligent, and although his features were covered, his hands, his thick dark hair and lean build indicated a man who was still young. Jack had talked his editor into paying to have John evaluated by a specialist in amnesia, since it seemed that John had some knowledge about the Hulk. What a joke the universe had played on both of them, hunter and prey, by causing their plane to crash in the wilderness on the way to see that specialist.

He'd liked John. He was a sweetheart, smart and funny, good-natured, tireless in his attempt to save them both from the fires that were sweeping through the mountains and from the wolves who thought they were easy prey. 

Being in a life and death fix like that, inhibitions had dropped away for both of them. Jack didn't let many people know that he mostly liked men for sexual partners. There was the occasional woman, but none of his relationships with girlfriends ever lasted very long. They always figured out fairly soon that there wasn't any kind of a future with him. 

He might be flexible when it came to gender, but his attraction to smart people was a constant. 

John was brilliant. The things that he'd done to help Jack with his broken leg, making the sled out of the airplane wreckage and in outwitting the wolves, showed how he could adapt, think fast on his feet. Jack had admired him for that. They'd grown close, talking by the fire at night about literature and testing John on what he knew about general knowledge. John couldn't remember his own name, but he had medical know-how, and had a vast knowledge of scientific information and knew classical and modern literature. 

The conversation had become personal, especially after they'd slept huddled together to share body heat. Jack was sure he was reading John correctly, that John was as attracted to him as he was to John. Jack began seeing how affectionate he could be with John. John had responded nicely, and had reciprocated. 

When Jack had been in pain, though, John had rubbed Jack's back, and pushed down on pressure points on the back of his hand and around his knee. John said that was he was doing was a traditional Chinese method to control leg pain. He talked about meridian channels and when Jack asked him how he knew stuff like that, John grew quiet. He said it was like a door opening and shutting in his mind, and he'd had a glimpse of a blind old Chinese man, who had taught him. He couldn't remember the man's name or where he'd lived, though. 

Jack had kissed him as they'd sat on the sled, watching the fire burn. It had felt strange, since John's face was covered in bandages. The doctor had warned that they should stay on, when Jack had asked if they could be taken off so he could look at John. John thought he might know Jack, although Jack had mentioned that feeling might just be from seeing Jack's picture in the paper with his byline. 

John was sure it was more than that, though. And sometimes, John had remembered traveling through an area that Jack had also spent time in, following a lead on the Hulk. Jack thought that John might be doing something similar to him – trying to track down the Hulk.

It turned out that John was right. And so was Jack. Their connection had everything to do with the Hulk. He thought, in hindsight, that John had regained his memories before he'd changed into the Hulk to save Jack. He'd acted differently, had been guarded, and the warmth that he'd shown during their week of hell had cooled considerably. 

Before that, though, he and John had gone from kissing and hugging to awkward groping and fondling, and they'd exchanged handjobs.

It seemed odd to Jack now that he and John had indulged in sex like that. At the time, though, it had felt more than right. Probably some survival instinct kicking in, to continue the species during dangerous times, even if it had been with a partner that would not make a baby. Instinct only went so far, after all. 

If John had experienced sex with other men, Jack didn't think it could have been with too many. It was different to hold another man's penis, and John hadn't seemed to have any real muscle memory to help him find the best places to tip Jack over into coming. His hands hadn't been deft with his touches, not like John had shown with, oh, making a splint for Jack's leg. 

He hadn't confronted John, hadn't told him he could tell he was new, or near to new, to having sex with men. Survival had been more important than distracting John with wondering about his sexuality. In a way, John's amnesia had probably freed him from denying his attraction to his own sex. Or at least to Jack. Maybe someday he'd get a chance to ask John about his sexual preferences, past and current.

Jack glanced at his bedside clock. It was very late now, and he needed to sleep. He let his hand wander south, pushing into his briefs, and with slow strokes he built up his orgasm until he couldn't wait anymore. He moved fast then, his hands practiced, and thought of John's awkward touches on his dick, erratic and wonderful. Remembering John's body arcing, the grateful, ecstatic sounds he'd gasped as Jack made him orgasm, Jack came. Slipping off his briefs, he used them to wipe himself clean and tossed them on the floor. 

Wondering again if John was all right, he rolled to his side and let himself relax into sleep.

 

* * *

Jack kept doing his job. Actually, most of his colleagues considered his chasing after stories about the Hulk to be more of an obsession. Maybe he was obsessed. He certainly had enough nightmares about being chased by the creature. The Hulk, John, fascinated him. So he'd drive or fly to whatever new town or place the Hulk had been spotted. He'd interview witnesses, try to learn more about John. He wanted very badly to see John's face, to make him look at Jack. John's eyes had shown nothing but honesty when he'd been a man who didn't know his own name. Jack wondered a lot about what he'd see in those gray eyes now. 

 

* * *

Jack was tired. He'd just gotten back to Chicago from Jenson County where it had been blisteringly hot, and the dust settled on your skin and in your clothes. The South-west was not a part of the country he liked very much. But to find and capture the Hulk, he'd go anywhere.

He unpacked, showered, and had poured himself a scotch and soda over ice when the phone rang. He thought it must be work related. He didn't really have friends who would feel comfortable imposing on him with a late night call. 

Holding his drink in one hand, comfortable in a T-shirt and old, slightly ragged jeans, he picked up the phone, and tucked it up between his shoulder and ear as he stretched the cord, sitting down on his bed.

“McGee.” He yawned, took a sip of his drink.

Silence greeted him but he could hear somebody breathing. He rolled his eyes. Great, some punk doing a prank call. He set his drink down on the bedside table, leaned against the headboard, and stretched his legs out on top of the covers.

“Look, kid, if you're trying to scare me with the heavy breathing bit, you can forget it. I don't spook that easily.” 

He'd been up close and personal with the Hulk a number of times now. He still had nightmares about the creature. A heavy breather on the phone line was small potatoes in comparison.

“Last chance to talk before I hang up. On the count of three, kid. One, two--”

“Mr. McGee, ah, don't, don't hang up.”

Jack frowned. The voice sounded familiar, but the name belonging to it escaped him.

“Okay, so not a kid. Who are you and what do you want and how did you get my home phone number? I don't give it out to many people, and the ones that do have it don't call me Mr. McGee. They call me Jack.”

He heard a sigh, and that wary, weary sound triggered his memory. 

“You gave it to me, Mr. McGee. This is, uh, well you called me-”

“John Doe. I was close this last time, John. To think that two days ago you were standing with the other convicts at that prison work camp. Damn. I probably looked right at you.”

“I was lucky.”

“Uh-huh. You know, I had that man you helped, the one who went bonkers because of a brain tumor, thought he was Hemmingway?”

“So he did have a brain tumor.”

“Yeah, and his doctors gave you the credit for figuring it out.”

“He's okay?”

“He's fine. I had him give your description to a sketch artist, before I realized he was deliberately giving wrong details. Bushy eyebrows, my left foot.”

He took another swallow of his drink, waiting to see if John would say anything. There was nothing but John's breathing on the other line, and it was a little fast. 

Jack said, “I run into that a lot, you know.”

“Sorry?”

“People refusing to identify you because they like you. Hell, you know that I like you. But I'll never stop trying to bring you in, John. You need help, even if you can't see it that way. Why did you call me?”

“Mr. McGee--”

“Oh, for crying out loud, John, call me Jack. I've held your dick in my hand and you've held mine. I think that puts us on a first name basis, don't you? And you called me Jack the last two times you called.”

“I know what we did. That's why I think I'd better keep to Mr. McGee, because it's not going to happen again.”

“You've got regrets? Because that was you babbling next to me, wasn't it, when I made you come? You liked it, John. Don't kid yourself. So tell me, now that your mind isn't full of holes anymore, was that your first time with a man?”

“Mr. McGee, that's not any of your business. And it's not the reason I called you.”

“You don't need an actual reason, John. You can just call to talk.”

“Well, I do have a reason. I didn't really see much in the papers about the corruption going on at the prison camp. Are you going to keep the story going, is anybody in the media looking into what was happening there?”

“I wasn't planning on it. Can't speak for other papers or the news shows.”

“I'm afraid, Mr. McGee, that things will go right back to the way they were unless all of those people are held accountable. If you, your paper were to keep at them, then it has a shot at being stopped for good.”

“Hmph. I didn't go out there for that story, John. I went because you were there. The Hulk.”

“But couldn't you do an expose on it now, Mr. McGee? The prisoners, they don't have anybody to take their side, to look out for their rights. It was wrong for the court system to treat us that way.”

“Maybe I could look into it a little more.”

“The whole judicial system in Jenson County was in on it, you know. The judge, the D.A., the cops, the warden, the ones who benefited from the cheap labor, it wasn't an individual case or two, it was a lot broader than that.”

“Still the idealist, aren't you, John?”

“I'm just trying to do the right thing.” John said, a little defensive.

“By talking me into doing the right thing. You can't risk testifying, can you?”

The only response was the increase in John's breathing.

“What would the police learn if they ran your fingerprints, John? Your real name?”

Silence still.

“Do you have a record, John? Are you wanted for something under your real name?”

John still didn't answer. Jack wasn't surprised.

“Sounds like a big fat yes to me, John.”

“Jack, those men need help.”

“And you can't do it by yourself, can you?”

“No, I can't.” John sounded defeated. “Congratulations, you've figured out that I can't risk talking to the police.”

“Well, the Hulk is wanted, but nobody knows you're the Hulk. I can't even identify you, and we spent a week together. Just what kind of trouble are you in?”

“Jack, do you really think I'm going to tell you?”

“No. But I wish you would. I can help you if you turn yourself in. Because I may not know your name, but I know you. You're a good man, John. If you're in trouble, it wasn't your fault. Why don't you let me help you?”

“Mr. McGee, I can't. It's impossible. But I'm not a criminal. I've done nothing wrong.”

“You've destroyed a lot of property, John. Or do you prefer another alias?”

“What?”

“You've told the cops a couple of times now that your first name is David. They called you Davy at the prison camp. Should I call you Davy?”

“Mr. McGee, are you going to help those men?”

“I think I'll stick with John as your name, until you're ready to tell me your real one. You see, John Doe, he was an honest kind of guy. Do anything to help me, and he was my friend. David, or Davy, he's not my friend. He wouldn't do the things me and John did with each other, would he?”

The operator chimed in, demanding more change or the call would be terminated. John said quickly, “I don't have any more money, please, Mr. McGee, will you do the story?”

“Tell you what, John. Let's make us a little deal. You start by giving me the phone number of where you're at, and I'll call you back. And then we'll negotiate. You see, I'm not an idealist. If I push your story, then I want some things back from you. Up to you, John, but you'd better make up your mind quick. Tick-tock, you know.”

There was silence for a moment, and then the sound of a fist hitting something. 

“Damn it, Jack McGee!” John breathed out a long sigh. “Give me your word that you're not having this call traced and I'll give you my number.”

“I give you my word that I'm not having the call traced. Anyway, like I told you before, you're greatly over-estimating my pull with the police department. The Chicago cops don't give a damn about tracking down the Hulk, unless you're running down Michigan Avenue. Now, how about that number?”

John gave it to him and hung up. Jack sipped at his drink and slowly dialed the number John had given him. 

“Mr. McGee?” John sounded like he'd regained the calmness he'd showed so much during their time in the mountains when not even hungry wolves had been able to shake him up.

“I want you to talk to me, John. That's my price for sweet talking my editor into letting me do your story.”

“Talk about what?”

“Oh, stop worrying that I'm going to trick you into telling me where you are, or something like that.”

“Jack. This isn't easy for me.”

“Look, I'll find you again the same way I've been doing for the last couple of years. The Hulk isn't a subtle kind of guy, now is he? You'll become him, John, and someone who wants the reward money will call me. You leave Hulk sized holes in brick walls, you run down the middle of streets, huge and green and half-naked, and you jump off buildings with lots of witnesses to see it. You've just been lucky so far.”

“I know.”

“And when I do catch you, I want you to remember that I'm not doing it to hurt you. I'm doing it to help you.” 

Jack tried to sound as sincere as he could, and hell, he was telling the truth. He wanted to help John as much as he wanted to keep people from getting hurt by him. 

John didn't say anything for a while, the silence growing into a deep chasm between them. Then he sighed again, and Jack read years of resignation in the sound. 

John finally said, “That's not what you said to me on the mountain.”

“So what did I say, John?”

“You said that I, the Hulk, would be the way you'd escape working at the Register. You want the fame, a Pulitzer for journalism, to go back to writing a real column. You said that you knew your paper would exploit me, and you don't care about that, Jack. You said people had to make choices and it was you or the other guy.”

John's voice rose in indignation. “I'm the other guy, Jack! You said you wouldn't let me go if you knew who I was. You're the last person on earth I should trust with my secret.”

“I'm being honest with you, John, that's all. And you know, it's you who keep calling me to help you. I think that shows that you do trust me, up to a point.”

“It shows how desperate I am.”

Jack said, “I know you're desperate, but you did come to me. You trust me at least a little, John.“

“Jack, this isn't about me and if I trust you. It's about how those prisoners are being taken advantage of! A lot of those men shouldn't have even been brought up on charges.”

“All right, John. All right. I helped you about the woman, and I'll talk Mark, my editor, into letting me do the prison camp story.”

John's exhale of relief was clear to him. “Thank you, Jack.”

“Uh-huh. Here's my bottom line. I think your story is the most important scientific discovery of this century. I think that you're being selfish by running like you are, keeping this knowledge to yourself.'

“I've told you before, this knowledge is dangerous, Jack.”

“I can see that. You can't handle this by yourself, John. Really, have you figured out a cure?”

“You know I haven't.”

“So let some other smart people take a crack at it.”

“If I find the right person I will.”

“Like Doctor Banner and Doctor Marks? Maybe you need more than just one or two other people. For safety. Their safety.”

“Jack, why won't you believe me? I didn't kill them.”

“I saw the Hulk there that night. He had grabbed Elaina Marks. God, the flames, the heat – I still have nightmares about it. I was dazed, and I regret not stopping Doctor Banner. He might have lived. Instead he ran into the lab to save her. I think the Hulk killed him because of that. Maybe you didn't really understand what you were doing, but you should be held accountable for the deaths you've caused.”

“I'm tired of telling you that I didn't kill them. You're just going to believe what you want to, anyway.” John's voice was dull. He sounded exhausted all of a sudden. 

“Look, John, I can appreciate that it's hard to accept. I believe that you believe that you didn't kill them, but that's not the truth.”

“I'm tell-- oh, forget it.”

“I also think that mitigating circumstances should apply. You're not turning into the Hulk on purpose. You need help. Somebody is going to try to kill you when you're the Hulk, because they won't know that you're a man. A good man. As a matter of fact, when you transformed on that boat where that guy was holding you as a hostage, I spoiled the aim of a policeman that was going to blow a hole in your chest.”

“You did? Umm, thanks.”

“I don't want to see you hurt, John. I'm not going to hurt you, not unless you're endangering someone else. When I point a gun at you, it's only to make you go to sleep.”

“And what happens when I wake up? Do you really think the Hulk couldn't tear through any prison walls?” 

“Not if you cooperate and explain how to keep you from changing.”

John sighed, and the weight of all his troubles was in that sound. It made Jack want to say something to make him feel better.

“You know, you've saved my life a couple of times now. The first time, in Las Vegas, I was sure that the Hulk did it accidentally, but you carried me out of the fire on the mountain, and I know that was no accident.”

“I never remember what happens when I'm the Hulk. I saved you?”

Jack said, “Yes. Thanks for that, by the way. And before I interview you about the prison camp, I want to know if you got your memory back when we were together.”

“Mmm. I was so confused when I realized I'd blacked out and must have carried you away from where you'd fallen over the edge of the cliff. The last thing I remembered was trying to pull you up. And then, when I came to, I'd lost my shirt and shoes. I told you that, right?”

“Yes. I remember that. I was starting to get lightheaded from the infection in my leg, but that I do remember.”

John said slowly,“I... had some glimpses of things, in my head, but they didn't make sense. I remember that I had trouble deciding if you were my enemy or my friend.”

“Well, you kept right on saving me by pulling me on that sled, so I guess that you decided friend.” Jack paused, thinking. “Actually, you're the type to save an enemy's life, so which was it, John? Friend or enemy?”

John was silent for another long moment, then said quietly, “Friend. I decided you were my friend. I remembered everything a while later, when I went to get water from the stream.”

“Ah, I thought you were acting differently when you came back from there. You said you were annoyed that I hadn't stayed on the sled. I'd re-opened my leg wound.”

“Well, that was part of it. Jack, you're the worst patient in the world. How many times did I tell you to stay put, but would you? Hell, no. Did your leg heal up okay?”

“Yes. Thanks to you, according to the doctors at the hospital.” 

“I bet you gave them a hard time, too. I'd bet all the money I've got that you left the hospital early, against medical advice.” John had sounded a little amused and exasperated.

“Keep your money, John. You know me too well.”

“It does feel like it. Okay, what do you want to know about the prison camp?” 

After Jack had gotten details on the corruption John had witnessed, Jack decided to make the questions more personal.

“You've been picked up twice now for vagrancy, that I know about. How did it make you, an intelligent, capable man, feel to be considered a bum by the cops?”

“What's that got to do with the story on the camp?” John asked, puzzlement in his voice.

“Nothing. I told you, I want you to talk to me. I could have gotten that other information from other sources, but I want to know about you, John. Remember the deal?”

John went silent. 

“I want to know you, John. I think about you a lot.”

“Why?”

“Look, I can't use this for any stories for the Register. Mark already thinks I'm too involved, too obsessed with you. He'd like me to drop the whole thing, transfer the story to somebody else.”

“I suppose I can only hope that happens.”

“It won't. If I'm taken off this story, I'll quit and freelance on it. I'm going to find you, John.”

“Jack, don't you have a life to live, instead of chasing after me?” John said, wryly.

“Not really. So, when you were arrested for sleeping on the beach, I had to think that you found it embarrassing and degrading.”

John laughed, a bitter edge to the sound. “Well, you're not wrong. And I wasn't hurting anything or anybody. They wouldn't let me just move on, either. That felt frustrating. The second time, well, I felt the same way, and helpless. They arrested me on charges on vandalism, trespassing and stealing. That sounds pretty bad,doesn't it?”

“Sort of.”

“Ah, but what actually happened was that I hopped a broken fence in an abandoned looking orchard, where there were no signs posted about no trespassing, and I'll admit to the stealing. I picked an apple off the ground and was eating it when a deputy sheriff on patrol spotted me. I was hungry. I've learned since all of this began just how powerful a force hunger can be. I've watched people prostitute themselves so they can eat.”

“Have you done that, John? I won't judge you if you have.”

“Not yet. But I know that I might, if all other avenues for my survival are blocked. It's not a comforting thought.”

“You know, the cop who arrested you on the beach thought he was doing you a favor, making sure you'd get something to eat, a better place to sleep for the night.”

“And he wanted to run my prints, see if I had any outstanding charges. Cops are suspicious of people, their motives, their actions. That's something else I've learned.”

“Is it all bad, the things you've learned being on the run? I can think of quite a few negative things, like always being a stranger, not having a home, having to leave people and places that you like and not keeping in contact with them, being hungry, like you  
pointed out. Not having enough money to pay for shelter or medical care. Are you lonely, John?”

“Yes.” Silence again. “Jack, please, let's talk about something else. I try not to think about those things, you know.”

Jack just kept quiet as he heard David take a couple of deep breaths.

A few heartbeats later, David started to talk again. “I've been grateful for the help people have given me. Some of the people I've met have renewed my faith in the human race. Some have taught me how to get by, how to survive.”

Jack murmured, “Hmm?”and David kept talking.

“When I was in the hotbox, in the camp, the other guy next to me in his hotbox, well, he sang. He sang and it was so beautiful, because they couldn't kill his spirit. He told me the trick about sucking on a pebble so I wouldn't go crazy with thirst. And, well, I've learned a whole new set of job skills over the last couple of years. Some I've liked, but even the ones I don't like I've appreciated since I at least had a job and was able to pay my way.” 

He chuckled, an honest sound that Jack liked much better than his earlier, bitter laugh. “I'm very grateful when people I've met won't talk to you about me, actually.”

Jack laughed, amused at John's cheek. “Okay. I know it isn't easy for you to let down your guard and talk to me. Tell you what, I'll let you choose between discussing literature or your sex life. What are you wearing anyway? Me, I've got on an old T-shirt and jeans on, and I'm sprawled out on my bed in my studio apartment. How about you? I assume you're dressed. Are you in a phone booth by the side of the road, or inside somewhere?”

“Jack.” John's voice sounded both disapproving and amused.

“Well? Was I your first man?”

“I pick literature. Um, what's one of your favorite books?”

“Mmm... _Look Homeward, Angel._ Have you read it, John? I mean, Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home again, and I found that to be true for me. When I went home for my father's funeral, it was like I was a piece that had no place in that puzzle anymore.”

“I haven't been home for a very long time. My father and I are, well, I didn't leave home on good terms with him. Yes, I think Thomas Wolfe was right. _Look Homeward, Angel_ was a favorite of mine, too. I haven't read that book for ages, though.”

“Hang on. There's some quotes and passages I've marked that I'd like to read to you, to hear what you think about them.” 

Jack put down the phone and walked quickly to his bookcase, running his hand over the spines of the books till he found the right book. He opened it to one of pages marked with an index card and sat back down on the bed, picked the phone back up.

“You there, John?”

Yes.” Jack was relieved. 

“Okay. Listen. _'But we are the sum of all the moments of our lives--all that is ours is in them: we cannot escape or conceal it. If the writer has used the clay of life to make his book, he has only used what all men must, what none can keep from using. Fiction is not fact, but fiction is fact selected and understood, fiction is fact arranged and charged with purpose. Dr. Johnson remarked that a man would turn over half a library to make a single book: in the same way, a novelist may turn over half the people in a town to make a single figure in his novel.'_ He ruffled some feathers in his home town, you know, writing this story.” 

“I see his point. I'm not a writer, but as a scien- never mind. You're the writer. Do you agree?”

“Yes.” Jack had caught John's blunder. He was going to say that he was a scientist. Jack had already figured that out, and he wouldn't spook John into hanging up by telling him that.

John said, “Do you write novels, short stories, or just news stories?”

“I've written some short stories, and I have a couple of failed novels under my belt from my college days. Someday, I'd like to take a crack at writing a book again. Probably non-fiction.” 

“Are you collecting characters from meeting people?” 

“If I do write a novel again, then yes, I'll mine and scavenge everything I can from what I've learned from people and about them. And in this business, I meet some real characters.”

“Present company excepted, I hope.”

“Present company heading the list. John, you're fascinating.”

“Because of the Hulk.”

“Partly. But I didn't know you were the Hulk, did I, and you intrigued me. So, just plain John Doe is a character, too.”

“Ahh. Thanks. I think.” Jack could hear a smile in those words. It was kind of rewarding, getting John to smile.

“Okay, here's another passage I'd like you to hear. If you remember, Ben was the brother who died. Eugene's been flipping out for a while, thinks he sees his brother's ghost, talks to him, that sort of thing.” 

He cleared his throat. _"And day came, and the song of waking birds, and the Square, bathed in the young pearl light of morning. And a wind stirred lightly in the Square, and, as he looked, Ben, like a fume of smoke, was melted into dawn.  
And the angels on Gant's porch were frozen in hard marble silence, and at a distance life awoke, and there was a rattle of lean wheels, a slow clangor of shod hoofs. And he heard the whistle wail along the river._

_Yet, as he stood for the last time by the angels of his father's porch, it seemed as if the Square already were far and lost; or, I should say, he was like a man who stands upon a hill above the town he has left, yet does not say 'The town is near,' but turns his eyes upon the distant soaring ranges."_

He heard John draw in a sharp breath and hold it. “John? You all right?”

Another sigh. “I've lost people, people I loved and that just... But you can't stay lost with them, even if you want to, not and try to live. It's just hard, you know.”

“I know.”

“I miss them so much, and I think about them, but I can't let myself be like Eugene, talking to his brother's ghost. It's not really living, you know. Once you've moved on, that time is done, it's over.” 

“I'm sorry.” He was. He wanted to engage with John, not stir up painful memories for the man.

“The grief can cripple you, but you keep putting one foot in front of the other even when each step is so painful and you don't think you can do it one more time, but you do.”

“John, I didn't intend to make this hard for you.”

“No... it's okay. I never really talk about things like this with anyone. I don't know them well enough, and the last person that I was really close to, she died, too.”

“John... You remember that I told you I don't have many friends? And I know we can't really be friends, not under these circumstances.”

“I don't see how, either.”

“Wish I'd met you before the Hulk happened to you. But you can talk to me, like this. Whenever you want. If you're lonely or you want to flirt or to just hear the voice of someone who knows you. It's a standing offer.”

“But you'll still try to capture me, won't you?” 

“Yes. That can't change, John. But I'll help you if you turn yourself in. I'll get a lawyer for you, a good one.”

“You're really persistent, Mr. McGee. Anybody ever tell you that?”

“All the time, John, all the time. Did you call me Mr. McGee again because I said that about flirting?”

“Maybe... Yes. A reminder to myself not to flirt back.”

“Don't pretend that we didn't have sex together, John. We did. So, was I your first man?”

“Literature, Jack. I picked literature. Tell me what your thoughts are on the book.”  


Jack didn't push him anymore, and they discussed Thomas Wolfe's novels until John started yawning and slurring his words.

“You're almost asleep, John. Do you have a place to stay tonight?” 

“Mmm. I'm standing in it. It's not very roomy but it'll do. Is the deal done, Jack? I don't think I'm gonna make sense for much longer.”

“Yeah, you kept your side of the bargain; I'll keep mine. Goodnight, John. Stay safe. Don't lose my number.”

“Bye, Jack.” The line went dead and Jack slowly placed the phone back on the receiver.  


He'd pitch following up with the prison camp expose to Mark in the morning. He wondered if John would really sleep in that phone booth. He was slender, and not tall, but it would still be uncomfortable. If it was business hours, he might be able to get the phone company to give him an address for the number. John would be gone by morning, though. 

Jack got up and put the book back on the shelf. There was an idea stirring in his mind, that John's story was so important that short news accounts of the damage the Hulk did and the people he'd frightened, or in some cases, saved, were inadequate to show the tragedy of John's life. But a novel might. An biography wasn't possible because he didn't have enough details about John to write it. He didn't even know John's real name. But a novel could allow him to fill in the blanks while still getting across John's story. He'd think about it, play with the idea. There was the flavor of Les Miserable about John's life, with John being the good man pursued by him, Javret. If he wrote this, though, he'd want to put in a twist. He'd think about it.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

 

“Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?”  
 _Look Homeward, Angel_

* * *

“Uh-hello,” Jack said groggily. He craned his neck to see the clock. It was one in the morning. He sat up in bed, and yawned. The operator replied, asking if he would accept a collect call from John. He told her yes, of course.

“Jack?” Jack wondered why it was that he could recognize John Doe's voice when he called on the phone, but when he was riding with the man Jack had missed the boat. John had chattered like a god-damned monkey about his non-existent wife, practically begging Jack to do a story on his career as a taxi driver.

“John. Good one you pulled on me in the taxi. It's late and I haven't heard from you since we discussed Thomas Wolfe. Are you in trouble?”

“Yes. No. I'm not hurt, but just... can we talk? Just talk. It's not been a good day and I keep thinking... I need a distraction, all right? You said... call. No. No, this was a mistake. I shouldn't have disturbed you, I'm sorry. Sorry, Jack. I'm going to ha--”

Jack interrupted. “Don't hang up. John, don't you dare hang up. You're rattled. Do you want to tell me what's wrong?”

“I should hang up.” John sounded bleak. Jack scrambled to offer him something, anything to keep him on the line.

“Or do you just want to talk about something safe. Ah, favorite movies, music? Whatever you need.”

“Okay.”

John had picked movies, favorite movies when they were kids, and had talked about a western, _Bad Day at Black Rock_ that he'd been allowed to see at a theater for his twelfth birthday. Jack would have to double check about the movie release date, but he thought that made John Doe about thirty-seven years old. Jack was older by a number of years, in his mid-forties. He'd served in Korea, in the Air Force. John, he might have been in Vietnam. Maybe that was where he'd learned to be a medic. 

Jack talked about watching _It's a Wonderful Life_ as one of his Christmas presents when it came out in 1946. He admitted that he still watched it every year, feeling a little embarrassed that John might find that corny, since it didn't exactly fit his hard-boiled reporter image. John, though, said it was one of his favorite movies, too, and they discussed the characters. John's voice had regained his usual calmness when the conversation had run down.

John fell silent, and Jack waited. One thing he'd learned from interviewing people was the power of a quiet interval. Most people found it uncomfortable to let the silence continue for too long, and sometimes spilled their secrets because of it.

John sighed finally. “I feel stupid. I made an error in judgment and it almost got me killed. And do you know why?”

“I'm listening.”

“Because I found a man attractive and accepted his offer to fly me in his plane to his personal island for the night. We met while I was waiting for my flight, which ended up canceled, and his plane was having some work done on the engine. We played chess for hours, and, oh, I don't know, Jack. I, uh, I've decided that if I'm attracted to a man and he makes a pass, well, why not?”

“So you just wanted to have some fun with this guy?” Jack asked.

“Let's call it what I thought it was. A one night stand.”

“How about we call it taking some comfort when you can. John, I'm not going to judge you. I hope you know that.”

“Um, thanks. It's not what I want, but nothing lasts for me anyway, not being with a woman, and I can't see it being any different with a man.” John sounded so dispirited. Tired. 

“So you flew out to an island. Were you alone with him?”

“Yes. He said he had a couple who came out once a week to clean, but it was just the two of us. He fixed a wonderful meal, we drank wine. He told stories about being a hunter. I was a little taken aback by all the animal heads he had mounted, but I still found him attractive. He said he'd turned the island into a game preserve for hunting. We started to play more chess, and I got dizzy and passed out. I woke up in the morning, in the bottom of a hole.”

“You what? Jesus.” Jack felt nauseous.

“That hole was going to be my grave. He even had a sign for it, with my name on it He'd drugged the wine, put me there, and left a tape recorded message that he was going to hunt me down and kill me.”

“Obviously, he didn't. You got away? Called the police?”

“He's dead, Jack. I buried him there, but the couple that caretake the place will find his grave. I left a note in the house explaining that he was a serial killer, and where the graves of his other victims could be found.”

“It was self-defense, John. The police won't charge you.”

“I didn't kill him. From examining him he'd accidentally scratched himself with his hunting bow, and the tips of the arrows were poisoned. He fell from a cliff into the water. He'd cornered me on that cliff and the way forward was impassable. It was too steep to climb down.”

“God, John.”

“He started whipping me with this bullwhip he carried with him and I... changed. He had wanted me to do it so he could kill the creature and I wouldn't. Couldn't. It's not something I can do on command. He'd figured out that pain can trigger the metamorphosis. My clothes were wet, too, when I came back to myself, so I think the creature jumped into the water and carried him out.”

“The bastard whipped you? Jesus, are you okay now?” Jack was picturing David's back bloody with whip marks.

“Changing took care of my injuries. I was fine. I got out of there, rowed a boat for hours and hours until a motor boat towed me to the mainland. I hitchhiked, got a couple of hundred miles away, sprung for a motel room – I'd cashed in my plane ticket before I left with him. And then a little while ago, I just... started getting shaky. I kept thinking about how I'd had to run and run and run and try to outwit him and I don't even know why I called you because really, you want the same thing. You want to capture me, and you say that you won't kill me, but if I'm turned over to the government, they're not going to see me as being human, they'll probably think the way this hunter did, that I'm some kind of animal, they'll experiment on me and being treated that way, that would be worse than death for me.” John was talking too fast; he'd lost the calmness that he'd regained.

“John, stop talking. Take some deep breaths. You're in some kind of shock. I've seen it before when I've interviewed people who had something really bad happen to them. Lie down on your bed, put your feet up, cover up with blankets and stay warm.”  
He heard John take a deep breath and then let it slowly out. A little time passed and he heard John moving on the bed. 

Finally, John said, “Jack?”

“Are you better now?” 

“Yes. It's funny. I've seen the effects of trauma before, both immediate and delayed reactions, but I didn't recognize it in myself. This isn't like me; I can't tell you how, because I'll give too much away, but I've seen people dying, hurt, in the middle of hell, and I usually don't--”

“Flip out? But this time you weren't being a medic, were you?”

“I never said I was a medic.”

“John, after the way you treated my leg injury, I know you were either a medic or a doctor.”

John was silent, so Jack figured he was right. But now wasn't the time to question John about his background.

Jack said, “This time you were the one who was being hurt. John, you were drugged, and drugged for a lot of hours, right?” 

“Yes, through the evening and all through the night and part of the morning.”

“Did you notice anything not right when you woke up?”

“Besides being in my intended grave?”

“I mean, your body. Did you hurt anywhere, have any marks, bruises, bites, have a sore throat? Anything at all?”

John's voice became quieter. “I don't think he penetrated me. But he came on my belly. He undid my shirt, had his fun, and buttoned me back up. I could tell when I woke up.”

“Ah, John, I'm sorry. Look, give me your number and I'll call you back. We can talk till you think you can go to sleep, okay?”

“Okay.” John gave him the number and Jack dialed it. 

“Hello?” John sounded tentative, lost, and Jack wished he was there to hug him.

“It's Jack. You want to talk about what happened?”

“No. Not really. I just keep thinking that I should have had more sense than to go with a stranger to an isolated place.”

“Why did you go?”

“I thought he wanted to go to bed with me, remember?”

“Makes sense. A lot more than what he really wanted with you.”

“It never crossed my mind that he wanted to hunt me. But I don't want to think about it anymore. Tell me about Jack McGee, about how you grew up, your first kiss, things like that.”

“First kiss with a girl or first kiss with a boy?” 

“Both, I guess.”

“Well, first kiss with a girl, Mary Jane Spritzer, was when I was eleven. First kiss with a boy, Douglas Smith, we were both twelve. I figured out when I was a teenager that I liked boys a little more than I liked girls, but I liked girls well enough. It was certainly easier to stick with girls. They don't want to stick with me, though. Men, that's done quietly. Very quietly. I'm not out of the closet.”

He talked about his relationships, growing up, going to college after he'd done his two year hitch in the Air Force, but he avoided talking about how he'd ended up at the National Register, stuck with a tabloid. That would be story for a different day.   
John listened, asked an occasional question. When Jack had talked for an hour, John thanked him and said he thought he could sleep now. 

“Jack, I never answered your question.”

“What question was that?” He couldn't think of what John meant.

“You were my first, Jack. I've thought about it since I was a boy, but you were the first man I touched, or let touch me.”

“Well, I hope someday we can do it again. I like you very much, John Doe. Now this other guy, I haven't really been introduced to him yet.”

John said softly, “I know. I wish... well, I wish a lot of things. Good night, Jack.”

“Be careful, John.”

John disconnected and Jack hung up the phone. He got up, went to the bathroom, drank a glass of water.

Tomorrow, he'd start trying to find where that island was located. John had said that it was a game preserve, and it was serviced by a plane. He was a reporter and this was a story that would sell papers. He wouldn't mention John, though. Nobody had seen John transform into the Hulk, so there were no witnesses. Well, not any that were still alive. Bastard got what was coming to him. The police would want to find John, of course, but it sounded like there was plenty of evidence in the house and in that graveyard to convince the cops that it was a serial killer who'd died from a hunting accident, and not a harmless eccentric.

* * *

“Jack, you _ass_! Jack shrugged his shoulders and attempted to walk past Mark, but his editor wasn't going to let him off the hook so easily. He grabbed him by the shoulders and walked him into his office, made him sit down in a chair in front of his desk.

“What are you even doing here? It was bad enough when you left against medical advice from the hospital to fly home from San Francisco, but you could at least take a few more days at your apartment. You were shot, for crying out loud.” Mark huffed out an annoyed breath, and Jack just shrugged his shoulders again.

“I stayed at the County for two days, Mark. Sure, it hurt like hell when that kid shot me, but he didn't hit anything important, like my spleen or liver. And I spent two more days being bored staying in bed at home. I'm not saying I'm ready to, oh, wrestle the Hulk or anything, but I can at least work on a few leads.”

“Didn't hit anything important.' he says. Jack...” Mark pinched the bridge of his nose.  
“Did you run my story on the boy who was killed accidentally by his friend? The one who everybody thought had been killed by the Hulk?”

“Yes, yes, it ran days ago. Got a pretty good response, too. Tragic, really. You sure can make 'em reach for the hankies when you want to, Jack.”

“Thank you.”

“Now get out of my office, and for God's sake at least stay off your feet, and go home at a decent hour, understand?”

“Sure, Mark. You know me, I'll be fine.”

“I do know you, and your definition of fine isn't in Websters. Go on, and try not to bleed on the carpet.”

Jack lifted himself up from the chair carefully and gave a lopsided smile to his friend, who had fond exasperation written all over his face. 

Jack walked slowly to his office and settled into his chair gingerly. He had some new notes to make. John had called him while Jack was still at San Francisco General, concerned about Jack's injury. He said he was okay, but Jack knew he'd been shot by that kid, too, when he'd distracted the punk from shooting Jack again.

Jack had checked to see if a white man between the ages of thirty-five to thirty-eight, slender, a little below average height with dark brown wavy hair had been brought in with a gunshot wound. He hadn't. Jack didn't know if John was hiding somewhere, nursing his wounds or if somehow the Hulk had healed him. The Hulk hadn't been slowed down by John's gunshot wound, that was for sure. 

He went through his messages and spent the next several hours on the phone and digging through his files. Mark wouldn't give him a new assignment yet, so he might as well spend the time going back over his Hulk files again, gleaning any new insights from the copious material.

* * *

Deciding that maybe it hadn't been the smartest move on his part to come into the office, Jack dry swallowed a couple of aspirin, before reaching for another page of notes. A half hour later, alerted by the sound of someone softly knocking on his open door, Jack looked up from the file he'd been scanning. 

Annie, the woman from San Francisco who had promised to turn John's whereabouts over to him was standing there. She'd reneged on the deal, refused to tell him where John could be found. She was beautiful, auburn hair, big brown eyes. She could have posed in a medieval painting as the Madonna, with her clear skin and oval face. 

“Well, hello.”

“Hello, Mr. McGee.”

“Change your mind about John Doe? That ten thousand dollars can still be yours, if your information leads us to him and he's turned over to the authorities.”

“No, Mr. McGee. I'm not here to ask for thirty pieces of silver again. But I wanted to talk to you.”

“You came all the way from San Francisco just to have a chat with me? I'm flattered, Ms. Caplan. Have a seat.”

She complied, her brown eyes solemn. John knew she was worried. Besides being able to tell when people were hiding the truth from him, he was pretty good at reading expressions.

“I'm making a detour, but I wanted to speak to you before getting back on a bus to New York.”

“And not on the phone? Well, what can I do for you?” 

“I don't think we should talk in your office. What I have to discuss is very... private.”

“You're not going to drag me out on another wild goose chase, are you? Really, what could you possibly want to tell me that can't be said here?”

She glanced at the open door and then picked up a picture of the Hulk that Jack had leaned against his coffee cup. It had been taken by some amateur. Jack had paid fifty bucks for it, because the guy had caught the Hulk looking puzzled, straight at the camera. John had probably been trying to figure out what it was. When John turned into the Hulk, he wasn't exactly stupid, but his brain didn't seem to work the same as a regular person. Jack had never heard him speak a word, just make roars and sounds.

Jack had wanted that photo because it was one of the few in which John wasn't looking ferocious and angry when he was the creature.

“He really is your John Doe when he's like this. I touched him and I could sense Da- John there, unable to break free, but there. Protected. The Hulk protects John.”

“I know.”

“Mr. McGee, I learn things about people when I touch them. It's a gift, although at times it's felt much more like a curse. Do you really want me to talk about what happened on that mountain between you and John here, where anybody could overhear us?”

Jack wasn't necessarily buying that she was a psychic, but if John had told her about them, it didn't matter. She was right; this wasn't something he wanted to discuss at the Register.

“I know a restaurant that has some very private booths, Ms. Caplan. How about some lunch?” 

He was a sucker for anything that involved John and the Hulk, even if it meant talking to a looney that thought she was psychic. And he'd better get her out of here before she said something about her mysterious powers in front of the other staff and he was forced to write a story on her supposed talents.

She was traveling on a bus. Nobody did that unless their funds were low. He'd pay for her meal, hear what she had to say, and send her on her way.

* * * 

“So what did John tell you about our wilderness vacation?” Jack buttered a roll and Ms. Caplan laid her fork down on her plate. They now had this section of the restaurant to themselves, as the table of people next to them had just left.

“He didn't tell me anything. I was hugging him goodbye and the images came, of you, and him.”

“Images?” 

“I won't get specific, but you were lovers. John was cold and hungry, desperate and scared, but he really liked you and being close like that helped.”

“John wasn't scared.”

“He was, Mr. McGee. He was scared for you; he was terrified that he'd never regain his memories. He just didn't let you see.”

“Okay. I can believe that.”

“I don't want you to think that I disapprove of you and him being lovers, because I don't, Mr. McGee.” She sipped at her iced tea, watching him closely.

“I'm relieved to know that.” He really should tone down the sarcasm, Jack thought.

“That's not why I came here. It's what I saw in the future that concerns me.”

Jack eyed her. She hadn't said anything so far that John couldn't have told her. 

“You're skeptical. I understand, but Mr. McGee, didn't you wonder why John and I came to that fighting ring just in time to call the cops and stop that boy from finishing killing you?”

“It's crossed my mind.” Jack pushed his plate to the side. 

“I saw what would happen when we touched hands at the church door, after that other boy's funeral. I tried to warn you, but I knew you wouldn't listen.”

She leaned closer to him, her pretty face intent. “And I had a vision of John, too, when he left the church after you came in the door. We touched and I saw that he was preparing to kill himself, Mr. McGee. He was writing a goodbye note to me, and he was going to throw himself off my balcony. I ran home terrified that I would be too late. I almost was. ”

“Why would he do that?” Jack felt his heart start to pound.

“John thought he had killed that boy and the guilt was overwhelming. Do you know what got him to climb down from that railing? You did. He didn't want you to die.”

Jack felt pinned by her gaze, thoughts of John -- ethical, sensitive John -- jumping off a building tormenting him. He didn't want John to die. And apparently, because this made the third time John had saved his life, John didn't want to see him dead, either. 

“Mr. McGee, what I see of the past, the future, is just glimpses, easily misunderstood. But I am sure that your path and John's will cross again soon; you'll trap him and he'll beg you to let him go.”

“I will?” he said, still fighting to keep the skepticism out of his voice. She was a kook, but, well. What if she was legit?

“Yes. I didn't tell him about what I saw because after that I saw multiple futures for John. I don't believe that his actions can change his future. But in every path he chooses, you are there, Mr. McGee, sometimes as his foe, sometimes as his friend. Except for one, and in that one John dies an early death, the Hulk destroyed by a fall from an airplane.”

“O-kay.” 

She looked at him earnestly. “In some futures, you are responsible for his capture and imprisonment by the government. In others you let him go and you never meet again. And in a few, you make a decision to save him and you become lovers again.”

“Oh, now, all right, let me get this straight. My actions send John into different futures, depending on what I do. Sure.”

“I don't expect you to believe me today. I hope that you'll remember this conversation in the future, though, when you have to make a decision about John.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Aren't you going to ask to read my future, look at my lifelines, peer into my eyes, that sort of thing?”

“I'm not sure I want to, knowing what I saw about John.” She gazed at him solemnly. If she was faking this, then she was really good at looking like she believed her own schtick. 

“Just as well. I may write for a rag that lives to exploit people about all this hoo-doo stuff, but that doesn't mean I believe in it.”

They finished their meal quickly and Jack tucked a couple of dollar bills under his plate. They stopped outside the restaurant, and she said, “You don't know McGee... that's what John said about you. The rest of the sentence was left unsaid, but I understood it anyway. 'You don't know McGee like I do. There was a fond note in his voice when John said that. Please, Mr. McGee, make the right choice for John.”

“You know, I still don't understand why you came here in person. You could have told me all of this over the phone.”

“That's true. But I couldn't do this over the phone.” She reached out and clasped his bare hand. He didn't try to free himself. Let her do her hocus-pocus act. He wasn't buying any of it. 

Her eyes grew wide during the long moment she was touching him, and then she let him go.

“Finished?” he asked sarcastically. She stepped closer to him and rose up and kissed him on the cheek.

“Yes. Thank you.” She smiled at him, and he raised his eyebrows.

“Thank you? For what?” 

“Don't forget to pack your swim trunks. Goodbye, Mr. McGee.” She turned and started walking quickly down the street.

He yelled after her, “Thank you for what?” 

She didn't stop. He debated chasing her down, and then thought twice about that. His aching side wasn't up to a new wild goose chase, and he didn't believe in psychic abilities anyway. She had just acted that way to leave him guessing.

He turned and walked slowly back to the office, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He thought, if he had enough time, he could put together the clues about John's identity together and come up with a name. Once Mark started dumping stories on his desk, though, he'd be hard pressed to find the time. So he would work wisely till then. One thing he'd gotten out of this little encounter with John's fortuneteller friend, she'd started to say his name and it sounded like it might have been David.

* * * 

“Aye, yes.” The skipper of the boat that had taken John out to the private estate on one of the nearby islands scratched his head and then replaced his dirty cap before waving Jack on board. “Told you yesterday that David Beldon works for Ms. Powell, and the only way a fella like you would be allowed to step foot on that island was if you had a party invitation.” 

Jack just waved his wallet at the old codger.

The old gent smirked at Jack. “Good thing you were able to get one. Now, have you got what you need, Mr. McGee? Water's cold this time of year.”

“Yes, I've got a wet suit, my costume, and... other supplies. Here's your money for running me out there.” He handed a hundred dollars to the man, who counted each twenty slowly before shoving it in a pocket. 

“Just remember our deal. You don't mention me.” The skipper waved towards a seat in the middle of the boat, and Jack dropped his duffel bag next to it. 

The skipper looked slyly at him. “I've thought a little more on your man, since we talked yesterday. Asked around a bit. Could be that I'm getting thirsty again.”

Jack sighed and hoped his expense account wouldn't be questioned. Lord, the bribes he'd had to pay to this shark. The old geezer could smell blood in the water as well as any great white. He knew he could squeeze a little more cash out of Jack.

* * *

The lanky skipper began flipping switches on his motor boat, and the engine started idling. Jack watched him pat the pocket where Jack's fifty dollars had ended up, another bribe for more information on John Doe. Jack had almost caught John yesterday, spotting him when Jack had stopped to have lunch at a picturesque village on his way to the airport from doing a feature on a serial killer several towns down the coast. 

He'd been thinking about John, about John's own close call with a deranged killer. The police were still investigating the death of the island owner, and the graves they'd found there. John was wanted for questioning, but the autopsy had shown that the man had died from the same poison that had been found on his arrows. John wasn't a suspect; the police accepted that he'd been another victim. A very lucky one, to have gotten away.

Jack found that he was constantly scanning crowds wherever he was, searching for a dark-haired slim man, listening for that pleasant voice.

This time it had paid off. Jack had recognized John walking through the shop laden streets, and he had chased after him. He still hadn't seen John's face. He'd blown it, had yelled at John to stop, to talk to him, and John had hared off like he was running a race. John had tripped and fallen, Jack close enough to him to hear his cry of pain. 

He'd gotten back up, but Jack could see that he'd lost himself again. He'd transformed as he was running away, losing his cowboy boots and shredding his shirt. He'd turned after he'd totally transformed and roared at Jack, but hadn't attacked him. He just went back to running.

Jack hadn't had his tranquilizer gun with him then, but he'd brought it this time. If only he'd had it yesterday with him, he would have shot John and confronted him when he woke up. He had a hunch that John would give up then, would talk to him since his secret would be exposed. He'd get John to agree to turn himself in, and they'd return to California together. He'd keep his word, too. He'd get John a good lawyer. Under the circumstances, he thought John would get probation and be ordered to have treatment. Chicago had some fine hospitals and researchers. John could stay with him if he couldn't afford his own place.

The boatman cast off the ropes from the pier, and took the wheel, standing next to Jack. He took the boat out of the harbor slowly, and glanced down at Jack. 

He cleared his throat. “About your man. I hear he's doing work in Ms. Powell's father's library. He was a smart one, that father of hers. Knew Ms. Powell didn't care much about his science work. My second cousin told me – she works in a lawyer's office – that her father tied up her inheritance with taking care of his books and papers. That's why she hired your Mr. Beldon.”

He spun the wheel to the left, and the boat responded. He cleared his throat again, caught Jack's eyes. “Something odd about that man. Told you he came running down the dock like the hounds of hell were after him yesterday, and him only half-dressed. Said that he'd been mugged, and that was why his shirt was torn, but he'd lost his shoes, too. What would a mugger want with his shoes? And in broad daylight, too. This is a decent town, Mr. McGee, not like that place you said you come from. Chicago, was it?”

“Yeah. Chicago.”

“I could believe your man being mugged up North like that, but not here.” 

He coughed, and Jack was starting to wonder if the guy had something contagious. The skipper said, “I've had a word with a friend out on that island, too. Mr. Beldon is still there, although he wanted to leave last night. Fair bit of dramatics over it, I was told. Ms. Powell, she gets her own way. Takes after her mother, and she wants your Mr. Beldon to stay for her party. Refused to let him use a boat. He tried to sneak out anyway, but Pierce, Ms. Powell's houseman, he put an end to that notion.”

He waited until he was clear of the harbor, and then kicked the engine up a couple of notches. “Mr. Beldon, he's liked well enough by the staff. Quiet, my friend says. Keeps to himself, but friendly. He's given a hand to help out when it wasn't his own work. Not afraid to get his hands dirty, but my friend said you could tell he was too smart to do that sort of job all the time. Knows one end of a shovel from the other, though.”

Jack nodded at him, and apparently that was the end of the information he'd bought. He watched the swells and swayed in his seat with the rhythm of the ocean, the wind strong against his face. 

John was using another alias with the name David. That made quite a few times now that he'd picked David and used last names that began with B. Maybe D. B. were his initials. Surely he wouldn't use his real first name, though. Maybe it was his middle name, or the name of his father or brother. Something that was helping him hold onto his real identity. Something that helped him cope with the lonely nights and hard times.

John was there, at the island that was becoming larger on the horizon. Hopefully, John's running days would soon be over. He'd write John's story sympathetically, but fairly. It was easy to push the knowledge to the back of his mind, but John had killed. Justice needed to be served. John had to atone for that, bring closure to their families. Stand up in court and say his regrets.

He knew John well enough to know that he did very much regret the utter destruction of people's homes and businesses, the fear he'd seen on people's faces.

He'd met Doctor Banner's family. Good people, the father and sister. They'd known Elaina Marks, too. Elaina, David, and Helen, they'd grown up together. It was Elaina who talked Doctor Banner into working at the Culver Institute. No wonder Doctor Banner had run back into the burning building to try to save her. 

Soon, he'd change into the wet suit and swim to shore, change into his costume and walk into Ms. Powell's fancy party and find John. And if John wouldn't cooperate, well, he'd brought the tranquilizer gun to convince him.

* * *

He checked out the other partygoers as unobtrusively as possible, searching for John. He'd taken the mask off one silent costumed figure, but he'd gotten away from the flirty blond girl as smoothly as he could.

The house was huge, the furnishings expensive. Ms. Powell came from old money and wasn't shy about throwing her weight around, according to the gossipers. Jack thought the theme of celebrating the vernal equinox kind of pretentious, but then he wasn't exactly in high society and he'd never been one for parties. Still, there was an air of desperation about some of the people who'd come tonight. This wasn't entertainment for them, they'd come because being in Diane Powell's good graces could make or break them in their aspirations.

He left the rooms that had been decorated for the party, and started quietly searching for John. He ducked around a corner when he saw Diane Powell leave one room, a frustrated, infuriated look on her pretty, elfin face. After she'd pranced angrily away, he walked to the door and waited outside it for a moment, checking his pocket for his tranquilizer gun. After he'd managed to shoot himself in the foot with the tranquilizer rifle, he'd traded it in for this model. Smaller, easier to handle. Less noticeable. He took a deep breath and quietly turned the door handle.

There was a man in the corner of the room, directly across from the door, but his face was in shadows, cast by the small light on the desk.

The man stiffened when Jack asked him why he wasn't at the party. 

He knew it was John as soon as the man spoke, his voice fraught with tension. Then John had turned off the lamp and bolted, dashing into the shelves of books. Jack had trapped him, standing his ground by the door and arguing for John to give up. 

John had rushed him, though, rammed a small, wheeled ladder at him, knocking him off balance. John made it out the door, but Jack heard his cry of pain while Jack was regaining his footing. 

As he stalked after John, he was struck by how John could have attacked him when he'd lost his footing, pounded him into pulp, but instead he'd run for it. The Hulk used his size and strength to stop people from hurting John, or others, intimidated the hell out of everybody, and then ran away, too. Just how much of John remained when he turned into the Hulk? The Hulk didn't talk, but Jack thought he did understand something of what people were saying to him. 

Jack was too far away to see John's face, but close enough to see John stumble and fall down the stairs. Jack heard John's pained cry. By the time he'd gotten to the steps himself, John had transformed, his plain button down shirt fallen to rags, the remnants of his cowboy boots scattered at his feet. 

This was it, this was his chance. He cursed silently as he fumbled with the tranquilizer gun, but John, huge and menacing, showed that he had some intelligence behind those green eyes of his.

He blocked Jack's first shot with a grandfather clock as a shield, and then even as the Hulk he showed John's inherent nature. He threw the grandfather clock, but not at Jack. He threw it to the side instead, where it crashed harmlessly. 

Then the Hulk pulled on the stairway carpet. Jack lost his balance; he fired, but his shot went wide. He fell down on his back in a graceless heap. When he was able to regain his footing the Hulk had dashed towards the crowded room of noisy dancing people.  
Jack pushed through the swaying hordes of mostly inebriated costumed men and women, extricating himself from the desperate clutching hands of the blonde, overly-friendly girl who had flirted with him earlier. She made him lose precious seconds and he ran towards where he'd glimpsed the creature exiting the spacious ballroom. 

He was so close to ending the mystery, he knew it in his bones. He'd trapped John on this island. He would really do it this time, use the dart and render the man he'd chased for years unconscious if John wouldn't cooperate. He wanted to look him in the eyes, take in the features that had eluded him for so long. People trusted John, trusted him beyond good sense and practicality. They let him into their homes, gave him work without checking his references, trusted him with their families.   
Jack needed to see for himself why John had that effect on so many of the people who had crossed paths with him.

His search ended in a large closet type of room, where there were racks of costumes and footwear. 

John was crouched down, hiding at the end of a rack of clothes, but he slowly stood up when Jack pointed the tranq gun at him. He was in some sort of romantic looking costume, wearing a big fancy blue-gray shirt with laces and flowing sleeves. He looked like a pirate hero or maybe some sort of highwayman. He wore a partial mask, and Jack felt cheated that he couldn't see his features.

“Three years,” Jack said. 

Three long, long years chasing what at times seemed to be a will-of-the-wisp, ridiculed by his colleagues and the public for his steadfast belief in the Hulk. It would all be over soon. He would see John unmasked, make him tell him his true name, and get the interview of the century. Then he'd help him, just as he'd promised when John had called to ask for his assistance or to accept his comfort.

“Don't move. It's over, John. Take off the mask.” John looked smaller than he remembered; tense, brittle, his eyes pleading with Jack to let him go.

Jack hardened his heart. He thrust away the memories of the late night conversations they'd had on the phone. John would thank him for doing this some day. This pointless running and wandering around the country was never going to get John the help he so desperately needed. He wouldn't let John persuade him to let him go. If he turned into the creature again, Jack would use the gun in his hand. 

“Mr. McGee, mine is not a happy life. All I want to do is to get rid of the creature. Why won't you leave me alone?” 

John's quiet attempt to reason with him did nothing to hide the vulnerability and sadness that his body language and the tone of his wobbly voice was projecting so strongly. 

This was the same man who had defended Jack against wolves with nothing more than lighted branches in his hand. His John Doe was brave, he knew that, so seeing him so scared of Jack finding out who he really was made Jack's gut clench. In reaction to that, he became more angry. John was making him into the bad guy here, and he wasn't. He wasn't the villain in their little drama. 

Jack held the gun, slightly cocked upwards, as John tried to dissuade him from using it. Once again, John denied that the creature had killed Doctor Banner and Elaina Marks. 

John was deluding himself, but he understood why. It wouldn't be easy for him, a gentle, kind soul, to accept that he'd killed those two people.

He told John, “You'll have every chance to prove that in a court of law.” He'd find John a good lawyer. They'd plea bargain the charges down, and John would be sentenced to mandatory treatment and probation. 

John started inching towards the corner. He begged Jack not to shoot him. 

John said, “Curare is a deadly poison. If you've got enough there to subdue the creature, you might kill me.”

Jack flashed on John splinting his leg, and later convincing Jack that gangrene hadn't yet set in. Even though John hadn't remembered his past life it was obvious that he knew medicine.

Maybe he shouldn't use the dart on John, but damn it, John had to cooperate with him. He stalked closer to John, rattling the racks of clothes to unnerve this man. His one time friend. John had saved his life, but he couldn't let that stop him. By unmasking John, Jack would be returning the favor. John probably wouldn't feel that way until after he was cured, though. 

John was so used to running by now that he wasn't capable of making the right decisions. He was too paranoid to understand the best choice – to give himself up.

The creature had to be stopped from hurting any more people. Maybe the Hulk hadn't realized how to be careful with human beings yet when Elaina Marks and David Banner had died. Since then, Jack had seen the Hulk be careful. He'd obviously learned to be more gentle, but that didn't mean he wouldn't kill again. No, the Hulk had to be stopped.   
Jack felt like a predator closing in on his prey. He could hear John's quick panicky breaths as Jack got closer and closer to him. 

“Take off the mask,” Jack ordered, his voice loud and harsh to his own ears. “Take it off!”

“Mr. McGee, you're risking bringing out the creature in me. Now please, please, stay back,” John continued to plead, his voice soft, submissive. 

The psychic girl who'd come to Chicago to see him, her voice rang in his memory. _“Your path and John's will cross again soon; you'll trap him and he'll beg you to let him go.”_ It only served to make him angrier. He kept closing in closer and closer to John, ignoring John's fear-tinged words that Jack might trigger the metamorphosis.

He cornered him against the wall, only one rack of clothing separating them. He could reach out and touch John; he could see the terror in John's gray eyes. Jack shoved the rack of costumes against John, heard John's fearful panting.

Jack felt like a bully as he shouted, “The mask!” 

And still John wouldn't take it off, the small bit of molded dark fabric covering his cheeks, hiding the last of John's face from him.

Jack reached over the rail of the clothes rack and snatched the mask off John's face, but he couldn't see John's features because John had ducked his head. John shoved hard at the clothes rack, bowling Jack over in a disastrous tangle of costumes.

John ran to the door and was out in the hall before Jack could even get back to his feet. Cursing himself for being so soft-hearted and not shooting John when he had the chance, Jack got to his feet. There was no way he would have missed, with John only a foot away from him. 

When he tried to open the door, he discovered that John had locked it.

By the time he'd gotten himself out of the room, Diane Powell had been shoved off a   
high balcony. All the guests were talking about her rescue, as he questioned people about seeing John, describing the costume John had worn. 

And then he'd been found out as a party crasher. He was told to get on the first boat leaving the island. Well, it wasn't the worse way he'd ever been tossed out of an investigation. He hoped that he could still spot John before the police arrived to take the man who'd tried to kill Diane Powell into custody.

* * *

Long after the party was over, he finally talked to Diane Powell. She was subdued, but somehow more honest after probably having the scare of her life. She knew that Jack had tried to stop her boyfriend from killing her and John. She owed him and he made sure to mention it. Jack was sure that John had left the island by then, anyway.  
Diane had suspected John of being her attempted killer. Diane and her servant had locked John in the closet to await the police. He had gotten out when Diane pushed the key under the door to him when she was being strangled by her lover. She might be a snob, and highhanded, but the girl could think straight under pressure. 

John had stopped her boyfriend from strangling her, and the boyfriend's rage had turned on John. John really wasn't a fighter, and the boyfriend was trying to choke the life out of him when Jack and Pierce, her servant, had run into the bedroom, alerted by the sounds of fists hitting flesh. 

Jack had stopped the crazed man from strangling John, but John's head was out of sight in the closet and once again, he couldn't see his features. He'd had to fight for his own life at that point, but later he guessed that pain had triggered John to change to the Hulk. 

The Hulk had saved Jack's life once again, and hurled the boyfriend onto the bed. Jack had swallowed hard when the Hulk had looked menacingly at him and stalked towards him. 

The Hulk had never hurt Jack before, but just minutes ago Jack had trapped and intimidated John and the guy could very well be holding a grudge about that. 

Jack backed away and tried to pick up the tranquilizer gun from where it had been flung during the struggle with the boyfriend, but the Hulk got it first and with one hand crumbled it. He glared at Jack, rumbling his disapproval, but he'd turned his attention back to the boyfriend, and collapsed the bed onto him, burying him in fabric and wood. 

He'd shoved Pierce away from the girl and picked her up and carried her off. She'd be safe, Jack thought. The Hulk wasn't angry with her, and he remembered how the Hulk had picked him up the same way and carried him to safety.

Diane wouldn't admit to knowing anything about the man she knew as David Beldon, except that he'd saved her life before she passed out. Jack suspected that she'd helped John to escape, but he knew a lost cause when he saw it. He turned instead to looking through the papers John had been working on in the library. They were notes on genetic research. John had come here then to read through Diane's father's papers and books, searching for any data that would cure him. More proof that John had to be a scientist, a doctor, someone in those fields. 

He left the island feeling unsettled, and with a heavy feeling in his gut. He was doing the right thing, he knew he was, so why did the memory of John's terrified face feel like betrayal.


	3. Chapter 3

 

“What stirs within the buried heart?”  
 _Look Homeward, Angel_

* * *

“Jack, I need that story in fifteen minutes.” Mark had stuck his head in Jack's tiny, dingy office, his eyebrows raised, an expectant look on his hangdog face.

“Hold your horses, I've just got a few paragraphs to tighten up,” Jack shot back at him. 

He hadn't been in a good mood ever since he'd returned from Colorado. He couldn't even write about the Prometheus Army project and their team of scientists, or John's capture. Jack had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, or face charges for breaking into the hidden facility for studying any aliens that were unlucky enough to show up on Earth. Any little green men that arrived were in for an unhappy trip if that was the way they were going to be treated. 

His John Doe hadn't trusted Jack enough to let himself be talked into staying in the facility and letting the scientists study him. Help him. Jack thought the blind girl, Katie, had influenced John in his half transformed state, telling him to escape instead. Katie had shown up in Manhattan, and had refused to talk to Jack about John Doe, except to emphasize that he was a good man, a gentle and kind person; he'd saved her life, pulled her out of a raging river. She was tiny, and blind, but he could tell she was a firecracker when she ordered Jack to leave John alone. 

He couldn't. He just couldn't let John go. He thought about him every day. Hell, he even dreamed about the Hulk and John. 

He had a re-occurring nightmare where he trapped John again in that small room full of clothing racks, advanced on him where he'd retreated to a far corner. He could hear John's heart beating so fast, so furiously, listened to him breathing in panicky bursts. John would beg him to let him go, promising him a blow job or to let Jack fuck him if he'd just let him escape. Jack shoved the last clothing rack protecting John away and put his hands on John's shoulders and kissed him, hard, brutally. Then he pulled off John's mask and he knew that he'd seen this man somewhere, but before John's features could register with him he would wake up, cold sweat pouring from him. 

It was disturbing to him on a fundamental level. Sure, he was persistent. It made him a good investigative reporter. But he'd never forced anyone in his life to kiss him or touch him, and he would never sexually assault John. 

He wanted to know John, to see him freed from the creature. The Hulk was dangerous; he was sorry that was true, but he couldn't ignore that fact. People needed to be protected from the Hulk's rampages. 

John was a sweetheart of a guy but he had a blind spot, thinking that his freedom was more important than other people's safety. John needed treatment. Drugs, maybe, to keep him calm. He should be kept somewhere safe, where there weren't people trying to hurt him. John's lifestyle dumped him in with desperate people, like that taxi service owner who dumped him in the middle of her problem with men with guns, and other drifters that would drag him into their troubles. He knew John changed into the Hulk because of anger, pain, fear. He needed a calm environment. There was no way for a man living on the run to have that. John needed to face that fact and turn himself in.

He wanted to tell John's story, the heartbreak, the amazing fact that his body grew taller, gained so much more weight and muscle, and strength. His face, it changed into something primitive and brutal looking. Hell, even his eyes changed color, from gray to bright green.

He wanted to explore how John's nature could be seen in the Hulk, and what that implied about John when he was human. Did John have dark impulses to violence that he ruthlessly kept squashed down? 

Even if he did, his tendency as the Hulk wasn't to maim or kill, his slaughter of Elaina and David had been a fluke, out of the normal pattern. He'd like to think that the Hulk would stick to just stopping the attacks on John or the people John had been protecting, then running away until he could change back. He'd been so close to watching the Hulk transform back to John in Las Vegas. If only that idiot hadn't shot at the Hulk, he would have known who John was years ago. 

“Hey, earth to Jack. I don't see any typing going on.” Mark was still in his doorway, leaning against it and watching Jack with curious eyes. “What the hell were you thinking about?”

Jack shrugged and Mark shook his head. “Why do I even bother asking. You know it's not healthy, this obsession you've got with John Doe. I oughta send you to a shrink.”

Jack ignored him. Mark said things like this almost every day. 

Jack typed a few more sentences then lit a cigarette, and let it hang on his lip as he finished up the banal, useless story Mark had shoved his way. He'd done a decent job, because he had standards when it came to his writing, but more and more it was harder to serve this pap to the public. 

He liked some of the people here at the National Register, and Mark had become a decent friend, but he was ready to be done writing for a tabloid. 

He pulled the sheet from the typewriter and handed it back over his head to Mark.  
Mark, his editor hat firmly in place, read through it and grunted. Jack took another drag on his cigarette. “This is good, Jack. I'd say you were wasted here, but you already know that. And I thought you were going to quit smoking?”

“I know, and I am. This is my last one. I go to see a hypnotist tonight. I've tried everything else to quit.”

“Well, while you're there, see if the mesmerizer can cure you of your Hulk obsession, too.”

Mark walked out with the story and Jack leaned back in his chair, taking slow drags of his cancer stick. 

He didn't want to be cured of his obsession with John Doe. 

* * *

Jack fumbled with the lock on his apartment door, almost too tired to even insert the key. The last two days of dealing with the cops and interviewing the scientists who had survived La Fronte's deadly Hulk trap had worn him out. Imagine setting on fire a locked lab full of frightened people, just to see one of them transform into the Hulk. 

John had even admitted to being the Hulk to save those other people, but that hadn't been enough for La Fronte. That crazy mercenary had wanted to see John transform to prove it. He'd been willing to kill a dozen people to see it, too. 

Jack clumsily opened the door and dropped his bag next to the closet. He went into his little kitchen and eyed his assortment of booze. He was too exhausted to savor the good stuff, like the Markers Mark, or Baileys. He settled for a bottle of Old Crow. He poured three fingers of the cheap bourbon into a coffee mug and knocked back half of it, thinking about how his heart had practically beat itself to death when he'd saved John's life. 

La Fronte would have killed John if Jack hadn't busted through a wire fence with the rental car and blocked his shot. The car had been set on fire and he was lucky to have ditched it in time. But if he hadn't risked his life, La Fronte would have have blown a hole in the Hulk the size of a cannon ball with the weapon he'd had on his shoulder. The Hulk hadn't seemed to realize the danger he was in. The Hulk knew what guns were for, he'd smashed enough of them, but that weapon of La Fonte must have been something new for the big guy. 

It had been like being back in Korea again. The adrenaline rush that happened when you were in a battle, it left you exhausted when it was over. He remembered how the Hulk had sat down on the sand after saving Jack's life in Las Vegas, how he'd looked... tired. The Hulk had to run on adrenaline, too. Probably John was as worn out as he was right now. John wouldn't have been able to sleep; he'd have been trying frantically to put as much distance as he could between that lab compound and nosy reporters like Jack McGee. 

Jack hadn't had any sleep, not really. Just a few catnaps, since he was so busy trying to get to the bottom of La Fonte's set up and expose the Limelite as the newspaper who'd funded the campaign to kill the Hulk. Actually kill him, instead of capturing him. Kill John. La Fonte knew the Hulk was also a man, Jack had told him that. He didn't care, and neither did those heartless cretins at the Limelite. The story he'd wrote exposing that connection had been blistering. It had given him great satisfaction to blast the other paper and to emphasize to his own readers how the Hulk had gone into a burning building to rescue Dr. Cabot. 

He kicked off his shoes, slid his already loosened tie free, dropping it on a chair. He was a little too wound up to go to sleep. He grabbed his mug and trudged over to his bookshelf. He glanced at the titles, wondering if any of them were John's favorites. 

He'd like to ask him about books they both enjoyed, but John hadn't contacted him for a long time now. The Hulk, this time, he'd trusted Jack. He'd stared at Jack for a long time, Dr. Cabot unconscious in his arms, before he'd handed her to him and had run away.  
Jack closed his eyes a moment, concentrating on the look on the Hulk's features. He hadn't been angry. He'd looked, well, sort of wistful, and yearning. Was that what John thought of him, did he regret not being able to be lovers or even friends with him? Was the Hulk John's subconscious? 

He pulled _Les Miserables_ out of the shelf, grimaced, and put it back. John was on his mind tonight, true, but reading about another fugitive pursued by a relentless tracker wouldn't help him get to sleep. 

He passed up _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ for the same reason.  
Settling on _A Tale of Two Cities,_ he pulled it from the shelf. He kind of identified with the fucked-up hero, although he doubted he would ever have the courage to put his own neck on the line for somebody he cared about, like Sydney Carton had done. But the screwing up part, oh, yeah. He could relate.

He took the book and his drink and put them on the night stand, and settled himself on his bed. He noticed his answering machine light was on and sighing, decided he'd better check his messages.

Who knows, maybe somebody spotted the Hulk and was calling about the reward again. The switchboard operators at the office knew to pass along any messages to him right away.  
He pushed the button and listened to the first message. It was some kid, asking him about doing an internship with him. Not if he could help it. He was tired of wiping baby reporters' noses and taking them by the hand to lead them through a story.

The second message was from John. 

“Jack? I guess you aren't back yet.” John's voice sounded tentative. “I, well, I was told about what you did. You... you found out about La Fronte's plans and you warned Dr. Cabot. To think that he set up that whole lab, just to trap and kill me. I'll have to be more careful now, I didn't realize I'd become so predictable.”

Jack took a sip of his drink, thinking that he'd bet a carton of cigarettes – not that he intended to ever smoke again – that it had been Dr. Cabot who'd filled John in on the events that had happened after he'd turned into the Hulk and helped get everyone out of the burning lab. Of course, half the people who'd seen John admit to La Fronte that he was the Hulk couldn't even get the basics of hair color and height right, and the other half was grateful to him and wouldn't identify him. So damn typical. What he wouldn't give for a good clear photograph of John.

“Jack, you saved me. I can't tell you what that means to me, that you did that. I swore to myself that I wasn't ever going to call you again after what happened on Diane's island, that I would keep my distance. I remember you at that government facility, when everybody was sure I was an alien. You wanted me to trust you, to accept your word that the scientists there would help me.”

John laughed, and it was a hollow, lonesome sound. “I think I would have submitted if it hadn't been for Katie. And she was right, wasn't she, Jack? Not that you can answer me, but they wouldn't have wanted to cure me; they would have wanted to make more of me. You think I don't know about scientific curiosity? About the mindset of the military-industrial complex? My strength when I'm the Hulk, just imagine how tempting that would be to them, to try to make soldiers so much stronger. I can't trust them, Jack. If I find someone with the knowledge to help me, I'll have to make sure they can be trusted to not take advantage of me before I approach them. The world doesn't need more Hulks, Jack.”

Jack raised his glass to that notion. No, the world certainly didn't need more Hulks.  
“But thank you. I know you're a good man, Jack. Just... please, can't you leave me alone? We were friends, on that mountain.”

Jack heard him breathing for a few quiet moments. Jack took another sip of his cheap booze and waited. He was sure that John had more to say.

Finally, John continued. “Do you know much about quantum physics, Jack? About Everett's groundbreaking theories and DeWitt's work with the multi-verse model? The fork in the road approach, that there are many realities? Sometimes, when I'm hitchhiking, just walking down a road, or waiting to fall asleep in a shack or on a bench or if I'm having a good day, in a bed, I think about that. In some of those alternate worlds, Laur-- well someone I loved is still alive and I'm with them. Maybe we have kids, a home.

John fell silent and in the interval Jack heard a semi rumble past wherever John was calling from. Probably some phone booth at a gas station. 

He went on. “Somewhere, in some reality, I like to think that we're friends, maybe even lovers. That I'm not the Hulk. That you're not hounding me. I like to think that some version of me is happy. I think we could have been happy together. In some other world, in some other time. I don't think I'm going to call you again, Jack. I don't even think I would tell you these things, if you'd answered the phone. Maybe we're good together in some other reality, but we're not there. We're here, and I can't let you get close to me. We can't be friends, we can't be lovers... do you have any idea of how much it would destroy me to feel that way about you and then have you capture me and turn me over to the government? Jack, wise up. There won't be a trial. I'll be disappeared into another secret government lab and if they figure out a way to keep the Hulk contained I'll live whatever is left of my life as a lab experiment. And yes, it would be what some people would call Karma, since I did it... “

John paused, and Jack realized he'd almost given away something just then. 

“Never mind. I'm sorry. I called to tell you thank you, not go on about my fears. Have a good life, Jack. Goodbye.”

Jack sighed and swallowed the rest of the whiskey, hung up the phone.  
John talking about alternate worlds, that maybe-a-real-psychic girl Annie talking about seeing many different futures for John, well, what was that quote by the Bard?  
Something about more things under heaven and earth than was thought of in Horatio's philosophy? 

Maybe in some other world, John was sleeping next to him and they were out of the closet and living openly together. Maybe in a better world, John hadn't experimented on himself and triggered his change into the Hulk. Yes, he'd experimented on his own flesh and blood, with disastrous results. Jack had read between the lines of John's last few words. 

God. John had done it to himself. He'd come to Doctor Banner and Doctor Marks for help, that much was obvious. He'd caused their deaths, even if he was in denial about that to himself and to the world.

Jack slid off the bed and took his mug back to the kitchen. He filled it halfway up, judging the amount of cheap whiskey he would need in order to relax enough to put John's words from his mind. So he could read his book, and go to sleep. Sweet sleep, that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, or some such poetic bullshit.

He took a slug straight from the bottle before screwing the lid back on it.

He didn't much like this reality of theirs. 

* * *

“Ahhh!!” Jack sat straight up in bed, his heart beating like jungle drums, and the message being sent was marked extra urgent. 

God, what a nightmare. John, of course. Jack scrubbed his hands over his sweaty face and got out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom, washed his face with cold water and used the facilities. He stripped off his boxers and turned on the shower.

He needed to feel hot, hot water streaming down his body, soothing him, relaxing him.  
He'd dreamed that he was watching the laboratory at the Culver Institute explode into flames again, Doctor Banner yelling for Elaina and dashing into the building. Then Jack was back in that wax museum, and the room was on fire and he was choking on the smoke. He was going to die there, and so was the woman with him, the one he was trying to pick up and save. But he couldn't do it, he just wasn't strong enough. Then the Hulk was there and taking her out of Jack's arms and they were gone. The Hulk saved her, and Jack was proud of him; he wasn't a monster, he could be good.

Jack stepped into the shower and began to lather up his body, getting rid of the sweat that had poured out of him. He'd have to change the sheets, too. 

The dream was fading but he remembered that after the Hulk had run out of the room with the girl, Jack had crawled over to the other man on the floor. He was sure it was John, the dark curly hair had to belong to his John. He reached him and rolled him over, the smoke making him blink and cough.

It wasn't John. It was one of the wax dummies, a pirate with a beard and an eye patch. 

He shook it, not believing that it wasn't John. His John Doe, he'd told that woman, the wax artist. His. 

He'd felt himself passing out as strong arms hauled him up, but before his eyes closed he saw the pirate dummy stand up and say, “Damn it, Jack, I told you to stay off of that leg!” The dummy ran to a wall and pushed with its hands and shattered the bricks. He ran through the hole in the wall, and he sang as he ran, “ Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Runaway Man.”

He rinsed off and turned the shower off, letting the water run off his body before stepping out and wrapping up in a towel and using another one to dry his hair.  
He took a look at himself in the mirror. His light brown hair now had a few touches of gray coming in, and it was starting to fall into his eyes. He needed to get a haircut soon. His blue eyes looked a little bloodshot. No wonder, with the night he'd had.

Crazy dreams. And why was he dreaming about this now? That fire had been months ago. John had turned into the Hulk, he'd been the man lying on the floor that Jack had glimpsed before he'd tried to save the girl. John had saved them both, although the girl didn't believe it. She was too afraid of looking like she was crazy. She'd told the police that Jack had saved her.

He'd ended up taking a tour of the place after all, and wrote up the murder and attempted murders that had taken place there for his paper. Lord knows, the greedy readers ate up that sort of sensationalism. 

He didn't like seeing the wax figures. They were creepy, the way they looked so lifelike. Especially the pirate. Wasn't even a famous pirate, like Blue Beard, but Jack had gone back to stare at it several times. The figure had looked familiar. Ugh. It was spooky that he'd dreamed the thing had been John.

He'd seen John since then. Or rather, he'd seen the Hulk after Dell Frye's hulk had been shot to death by the sheriff of Vissaria, a small town that had harbored another hulk decades ago.

Both of the hulks had been cornered in the old Clive house in the genius scientist's old laboratory. Jeffrey Clive had died thirty years earlier, but his fiance, Elizabeth, had been there with the two green monsters. His John, his Hulk, had looked at Jack after the sheriff had shot the other taller hulk half a dozen times. His Hulk hadn't been roaring or growling. He'd looked bewildered mostly, and confused. Elizabeth had stepped in front of him to protect John so that the sheriff wouldn't shoot him. She'd kept insisting that John hadn't hurt anybody, that he'd saved her. The Hulk had run away then, John disappearing again before Jack could stop him.

The lab was a wreck. Dell Frye's hulk body changed back to that of an old man with gray hair. Elizabeth Collins told the sheriff, and him, that thirty years ago her fiance had done an experiment with rays from the sun and that Dell had been his subject.

Clive had realized he'd made a terrible mistake when the creature Dell turned into had begun to kill people who had treated Dell poorly. He'd managed to cure Dell before his own death. John had understood what the earlier scientist had done, and he'd been elated to find that there was still some of the compound that had cured Dell thirty years ago. 

But Dell had overpowered John and used the machine to turn himself back into the rage monster he'd been before. He had liked the feeling of power, and it had cured him of his crippling arthritis.

He'd started killing again, and John had come to Elizabeth for help. They'd lured Dell into coming to see her, she'd said, by her promising to leave town with him. He'd always had strong feelings for her, but she had never returned them. She'd been kind to him, and he'd mistaken that for love. They'd sedated Dell and taken him out to the old house where the equipment was ready. Tragically, he'd broken free before the treatment could be finished. He'd smashed the machinery and the last vial of the compound that could have saved John. God, from what Elizabeth had told them, John had been devastated.

Jack turned away from the mirror, suddenly sick of looking at himself. Of course John had been devastated. To have come so close to being cured and than to lose that chance, how else would he feel? 

Jack got dressed, made a pot of coffee. Elizabeth had said she'd tried to talk John into taking the cure first, then they would try to cure Dell, but John wouldn't do it. He would be asleep for a couple of days after the treatment, and he was afraid that Dell would kill again during that time. He'd sacrificed his chance to be free of the Hulk in order to stop a murderer from killing anyone else. But, oh, John. He could have regained his life, maybe not under his real name, but he could have started over and been happy.

One thing about Jack's encounter with Dell Frye still puzzled him. He knew very well John's approximate age, height, hair and eye color. Dell Frye looked nothing like him. Didn't sound like him. Hell, he was a good twenty-five years older than John. But for some reason Jack had decided that Dell must be his John Doe when he'd met him. Logically, it didn't make any sense. But that was what he had done. It wasn't until he'd seen that there were two hulks that he rejected the idea that John was really Dell Frye.

John had worked his charm on Elizabeth Collins. She defended him to Jack and the sheriff, called him a kind and gentle man. Jack agreed. But despite that, despite knowing that John was searching desperately for a cure, Jack couldn't forget that the Hulk had killed. He hadn't been lying when he'd told Elizabeth that he would be the last person to want to harm the creature, or the man who becomes it. He also would not stop searching for him, to get him the help he needed.

Jack poured himself a mug of hot, black coffee, strong the way he liked it, and carried it over to his desk. He sat down in front of his typewriter. It would be hours before he had to go into the office, and since he'd been thinking so much about John he'd work on his novel. John's novel; his story was tragic, and people liked to read a good fugitive story. 

This novel had elements of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, except the creature the protagonist turned into wasn't evil. He was just too big and prone to smashing things that angered him. Things, not people. Like the Hulk, he would toss people who'd attacked him aside but not so hard as to kill them. His monster-hero had an odd skin tone, the sort of light blue shade that you could see in ice sometimes. He thought making him green would be a little too obvious a comparison with the Hulk. His man turned monster was stupidly heroic, and mute, like the Hulk. He was a little altered in his face, enough to frighten people.

Jack had done some research into legends and myths, and decided that his hero had an ancestor who was a Jotunn giant from Nordic mythology. When David, a scientist – he was using John Doe's usual name for himself – had done an experiment on himself, the nature of which was unknown at this point in the story, he'd unlocked the power of his ancestry and he'd turned into a Frost giant. A small one, though, only about eight feet tall. About the only powers he had were incredible strength and being very tolerant of the cold. 

Like the Hulk, the police wanted to question him regarding the deaths of scientists at a university research center where he'd gone for help after he'd been triggered into the first change. Jack was using John's triggers for that part. Fear, anger, pain, they all triggered David Vinterson to become a monster in the eyes of the world.  
It also had some of the Beauty and the Beast storyline, because David Vinterson was being pursued by a gorgeous private detective, hired by the family of one of the dead scientists. The family was wealthy, and Jack thought he could play around with that set-up, some of the family wanting Vinterson brought to trial and some of them wanting him killed. It would be the private detective who would take on Jack's role in the Hulk drama. 

He'd made her a woman, with a past history of working with her pop and brothers in the family business of bounty hunting before she joined the police department for nearly seven years. The story would unfold from her point of view. He was setting things up for a series, gradually revealing the past of both David Vinterson and Elaina Banner. He'd decided to use the names of the two victims of the Hulk as a sort of tribute, and also to remind himself that the Hulk had killed those two people. 

He was making David Vinterson a misunderstood hero, not someone who had committed manslaughter like John had done when he'd changed into the Hulk at the Culver Institute. His fictional monster character was not the Hulk; David Vinterson was not John Doe. Jack was merely borrowing some aspects of his experiences with John and the Hulk, and spinning it into gold. Well, he certainly hoped the book would sell, with its mixture of fantasy and science fiction, detective genre and romance. His two main characters were going to be attracted to each other, star-crossed lovers. They'd have their own version of what he and John had experienced on that mountain, after their plane had crashed.

He wrote for several hours, then got up, stretched, and got ready to head out to the Register. He wasn't looking forward to being there. The offices were being remodeled and he'd been stuck in a closet with Emerson Fletcher for a week now. 

Fletcher was another shipwrecked writer who'd washed up on the reef that was the National Register. Jack was willing to give the guy a break or two because of that, because half of his colleagues had come to the Register the same way, including him. But if Fletcher didn't stop trying to smoke in their crowded little temporary shared office, he would be hard put to keep his temper. 

John apparently had not been giving in to his temper and hadn't been dragged into fights where he was getting the crap beat out of him, because the Hulk hadn't been spotted for months now. He didn’t like to think about the possibility that John was dead. He'd seen Dell Frye's hulk killed in front of him; up until then Jack hadn't really believed it was possible to kill the Hulk. He'd be relieved when the big green creature surfaced again.

* * *

Jack stared out the window of the plane on the flight back to Chicago from Atlanta. God, he wanted a cigarette so bad. That damned Fletcher had handed him a cigarette when Jack had been distracted after the Hulk had once again run away from him. Fletcher had smirked when Jack had lit up and taken in a few drags before remembering that he'd paid five hundred dollars to quit smoking, and he'd just thrown that money out the window.

He kept replaying the events of the last two days in his head. He couldn't stop thinking about how the Hulk had looked at him before escaping. 

Fletcher, the sneaky bastard, had intercepted a call meant for Jack about the Hulk being sighted in Atlanta. He'd forged Mark's name on the expense voucher and had gone to see the woman who had identified his John Doe as the Hulk. He'd passed himself off as Jack. Just thinking about that made Jack long for a drag on a cancer stick. 

Stella Verdugo, part southern belle, part grifter, had smelled a rat and called the National Register to complain that Jack McGee was cheating her out her reward of ten thousand bucks. Jack had realized what Fletcher was up to and flew down to Atlanta to take back his story.

By the time Jack and Stella had put together what Fletcher had done and tracked him and John down in John's little apartment, it was too late. Fletcher had been interviewing John for two days. Fletcher had also called a news crew because they were camped out by the apartment building's exit. 

Jack had no desire to see John's face splashed across a TV screen. His John deserved better than to be shown off as a freak, his eyes wounded and hunted and haunted. Jack would take care of John if he would just surrender to him. He'd stay with him as John turned himself over to the police. He'd help him, not exploit him. Jack would make sure his story was fair and balanced so that readers would see that John was a tragic figure that needed help. He wasn't a monster to be poked at with pitchforks. 

But John hadn't listened when Jack had yelled at him through his locked apartment door. He was sure that if he could just make John look at him, he would accept doing things Jack's way. But, once again, John wouldn't trust him. Jack, desperate, broke down John's door with an ax when John tried to escape. Fletcher, six feet, four inches, with arms like an octopus, blocked Jack from grabbing John.

John hurt himself breaking out the bathroom window, and the Hulk had taken over. Jack had tried to shoot his dart gun at the Hulk. He'd brushed aside John's words that the medicine in the dart might kill John if he changed back to being human. It wouldn't hurt John or the Hulk, just make him go to sleep for a little while. He'd missed his first shot, thanks to Fletcher's interference. Fletcher had lifted Jack off his feet and wouldn't let him go till the Hulk had pushed through the bathroom wall. Later, Jack had seen John's blood on the floor and shattered glass and felt guilty.  
Jack followed the Hulk through the broken wall and found himself on a narrow ledge three stories up in the air.

He'd lost his footing. It had been a blur to Jack, his reaching for his fallen tranq gun, the Hulk jumping down to the ground. The next thing he knew he was falling so fast through the air. The Hulk caught him. Cradled him in his arms like he was something precious and set him gently down on his feet.

He could have thrown Jack across the street. He could have hurt him. Instead he'd stared at Jack for what seemed like eternity, and Jack had stared back into those innocent green eyes. There was no rage, no anger there, just fascination and bewilderment. And something else that Jack thought was trust.

The Hulk would show irritation with Jack when he tried to shoot him, but otherwise he didn't try to scare him or hurt him. If they could be someplace quiet and alone, he thought the Hulk might stay with him; Jack could take his hand and watch the Hulk change back to John Doe. 

John didn't trust Jack, but Jack thought the Hulk recognized and trusted him. He could have chosen any of the other people at the lab compound to entrust Dr. Cabot to, but he'd brought her to Jack.

And that meant that deep down, maybe John trusted him, too. 

Stella, breathless with her air of Southern charm that was past its expiration date, had said that it was beautiful seeing the Hulk move, all muscles and grace. Jack had agreed, knowing he was giving away his feelings about John. It _was_ beautiful, that change from man to something more primal, more honest. It was fascinating and John was darkly enchanted by John's transformations. 

This story should have been his. Fletcher had a lot to answer for, and he knew Mark would fire the son-of-a-bitch. Fletcher must have blackmailed John into talking to him. Jack had seen the tape recorder on the coffee table. Fletcher had made tapes. He wouldn't give them to Jack, though. He'd tried to get Fletcher to tell him what he and John had talked about, see if he'd learned John's name. Fletcher had looked serious for a moment, a welcome change from his usual smirk, and refused to tell Jack anything.  
He doubted that Fletcher would change his mind even if he pestered the guy for a month. He'd bet anything that Fletcher had been planning on using John to save his career, but instead he'd tanked the biggest story of the century and certainly of Fletcher's career. It seemed that John had made quite the impression on him. Fletcher had said that he owed John and that he was going to keep John's secret. Chalk up another one for the John Doe Protector's Club. 

Jack sighed and watched the skyline of Chicago come into view. John was probably standing out on a highway with his thumb out. He hoped John's injury had healed. Apparently becoming the Hulk helped John to heal. John had been unable to move his legs a few months ago when he'd been hit by a car, not until he'd changed into the Hulk a few times. John's buddy from the hospital was another one who felt protective of John, but even so, Jack had gotten some of the story of John's time in the hospital from him.  
And John had ended up in the hospital for a while after almost dying from an incredible electrical shock. Turning into the Hulk had apparently kept him alive, if seriously hurt. 

Jack's reasons for coming after John were so convoluted now, but it wasn't just what he'd told John on that mountain. He wasn't after the Hulk's story just to promote his paper and rescue his career from this tabloid hell he was stuck in. And sure, he wanted to protect the public from the Hulk's moods. Jack had no reason to trust that the Hulk could always control himself, considering those two deaths.. 

But it wasn't just about what Jack wanted for himself or for the safety of others. He wanted what was best for John, and this crazy traveling around the country, trying to fix his problem by himself wasn't what John needed. It was too risky. People would always go after Frankenstein's monster with pitchforks, after all, when they saw the monster outside the safety of the castle walls. 

He hoped that John was safe, wherever he was now. _I'll find you yet, John Doe._

* * *

He found him in the company of wrestlers, and lost him again. The Hulk wasn't spotted again for months, and once again, John managed to evade him, although Jack learned that John had been there for a while, working as a logger. He'd been interested in a girl, but not enough to stay in town after the Hulk had made an appearance. John was in the wind again.

Jack kept channeling his fascination with John into his novel, and like Thomas Wolfe, he scavenged through John's and the Hulk's encounters with him and with others and adapted them for his book. He might change the storyline and tweak the characters, but the emotions between himself and John, that he wanted to keep. 

He fleshed out his Hulk file, much to Mark's consternation. Jack completed additional interviews with witnesses to the Hulk's rampages and with those people who had crossed paths with John, if they were willing to talk about him. 

Once he'd finished his novel, he'd gone the rounds of publishing houses. Predictably, most of them weren't interested, but Ballantine books liked the characters and the storyline and the potential for sequels. They offered Jack a contract for his current project and two future ones. 

Jack kept busy. He did the ridiculous stories that Mark assigned to him at the Register, and he had almost finished the second novel when the first one was printed.  
The sales were doing pretty well for a writer with his first published book, and he'd gotten some decent reviews. 

And yet, he felt restless and his obsession with John and the Hulk hadn't dimmed. He dreamed of them, of the Hulk's long stares at him, of John's hands touching him, of the companionship he'd felt with John on the mountain. 

When he was awake he had awful daydreams. Instead of John being helped by a sympathetic judge by being given probation and ordered to have treatment, he would picture John in handcuffs, being made to answer for the Hulk's crimes and sentenced to prison.  
Or he'd visualize John kept in a secret facility staffed by scientists and guarded by the elite of the armed services. It should have been a satisfying daydream, John getting the help he deserved. Instead he had insidious thoughts of the scientists doing things to John: hurting him to track his rate of healing, taking his flesh and blood and altering it into something that would be administered to soldiers, watching as they grew in size and ferocity, making an army of super soldiers from one slender, gentle man. John would hate that so much, he knew.

He'd riffle through his Hulk file again and again, as if doing it one more time would reveal John's identity. He'd contacted Fletcher a few times, to see if he could be persuaded to tell Jack what he'd learned during the two days he'd spent with John. 

Fletcher usually laughed at him and said no, that he still owed John Doe. The last two times, though, he thought maybe his persistence was paying off. Fletcher seemed to be at least thinking about it. Jack could afford to pay him for the information, since the book was selling fairly well. The last time, Fletcher had changed the subject and asked Jack if he was still smoking. 

Jack told him no, he wasn't, no thanks to him for giving Jack that cigarette in Atlanta. 

Fletcher had said _”sorry about that”_ , but Jack could still hear that perpetual smirk in the guy's voice. Fletcher said that his wife was after him to quit and asked Jack what was his secret.

When he told Fletcher about the hypnosis he'd had, it had hit him then.  
He'd go back to the woman who had helped him before and ask her to hypnotize him to remember everything he'd ever noticed about John and had forgotten.

Maybe then he'd put the missing clues together and come up with John's identity. 

* * * 

Jack entered the hippie bookstore on the edge of Old Town, the chiming of the string of Indian bells on a frayed looking thin rope bringing Molly Morning Star out from the next room. 

He took in her appearance, noting that nothing about her seemed different. Her long thick red hair was still worn in many small braids that were gathered at her nape and cascaded down her back. She was practically the poster child for Hippie Woman, wearing a patchwork skirt that to him seemed more from the sixties than now. She wasn't a flake, although she sold incense and crystals along with books on herbs and organic gardening. She taught yoga and meditation, besides being a hypnotist. He'd been skeptical that she could help him kick the nicotine habit, but he'd checked her out and she'd come with good references. She'd helped him when every other time he'd tried to quit he failed. 

She smiled at him. “Jack! So nice to see you. And what brings the best reporter from the National Register to my doorstep this fine evening?” 

“Hi, Molly. I was hoping you could help me out.” He explained a little about what he wanted.

She nodded. “I can try. I'm closing in twenty minutes, if you want to do a session tonight.”

“Yeah, Molly, that would be good.” 

“Well, why don't you go to the meditation room and take off your shoes and jacket, and that tie. Make yourself comfortable, practice the breathing exercises I showed you – you remember them?” He nodded. “We'll talk more about why you showed up on my doorstep when I join you.”

“Henry, the kids, they doing okay?” 

She smiled, the corners of her green eyes crinkling. “They're good. We'll chat later, after your session. Right now, mister, you've got some mental preparation to do, so scoot.”

* * *

Jack blinked and looked at Molly expectantly. The last thing he remembered was counting down from twenty. “Are we done? Or didn't it work? Nothing new is coming to mind about John.”

Molly's was sitting in a chair opposite from his own comfortable overstuffed one and her usual smile was conspicuously missing. “I need to talk to you before giving you the trigger to remember our conversation. You went under just fine, and I took you back to when you first encountered the Hulk and each time you investigated where your John Doe had surfaced. But Jack, you already know your John Doe's real name.”

“I what?” Jack felt a roaring in his ears and dizzy.

“You met him before you ever saw the Hulk and before you started chasing John Doe all around the country. You were able to tell me that, but you've repressed his identity.”

“What?” 

Molly touched his arm. “Jack, this isn't just a simple memory exercise anymore. When somebody has a block this strong on letting themselves know vital information it means that knowledge is a psychological time bomb and it has to be defused very carefully, or that knowledge can do a lot of damage. This is beyond my skills, Jack.”

“Molly, what...” His heart was beating too fast, his skin felt clammy.

“I'll give you the trigger in a moment, and you'll remember our entire session, but I really don't think it will be enough to break the blockage. I'm going to give you the name of a psychologist who uses hypnosis as part of his therapy, and I would strongly recommend you go see him.”

“I don't get it.” He felt confused, sick. 

Molly looked alarmed and leaned forward in her chair. “Okay, Jack, let's do those breathing exercises again. You've just had a shock. Breathe in, hold it,” she counted for him, “okay, slowly exhale matching my count.” 

They did this until Jack felt a lot more like himself. “I'm okay, Molly. But I don't get it. You can't be right.”

Molly looked at him, almost frowning. “Jack... whatever it is that you're hiding from yourself, it's going to devastate you when you do recall it. I'm really sorry. I'm going to give you a few minutes to think things over, make us some chamomile tea. After you've had a cup, then I'll put you back under and give you the trigger to remember the session, if you want me to. It's up to you.”

Jack still felt like he'd been run over by a truck. “You're saying that I know my John Doe's real name, his identity, and I'm hiding it from myself?”

“Yes, Jack, that's what I'm saying.”

“Because I'm, what, doing some sort of self-protection thing? Molly, are you joking?”

“No, of cours--”

“I've spent years trying to find out who John is, why would I keep that from myself? Are you sure I really know who he is?”

“I am sure. You were clear about that, but Jack, when I asked you his name, you became seriously agitated. People repress when the memory is too traumatic for them to deal with it, and I'm not the person to help you with this. Go see Dr. Cooper.”

“He's a shrink?”

“Psychologist. I'll give you his number before you leave. I know this news is upsetting, just take a few minutes to take it in. I'll be back with the tea. Chamomile has a calming effect, and then, if you want to remember everything in our session, I'll give it to you.”

She left the room, and Jack got up from his comfortable chair and walked around the room. Of course he wanted to know John Doe's real name. Didn't he?

* * *

Jack couldn't sleep that night once he'd gone to bed. He kept thinking about his session with Molly. She had to be wrong. He couldn't remember ever wanting anything as much as he wanted to look at John's face and know his name. He wasn't going to go to a psychologist, there was nothing in his memories to unblock. 

He tried counting backwards from five hundred to induce sleepiness and gave it up when he got to one hundred and thirty-seven. He pictured himself floating in a lake on his back, another one of his tricks to get himself relaxed enough to sleep, but tonight it just wasn't working. 

With a snarl, he tossed the covers aside and stood up and stretched. Yanking on his bathrobe, he grabbed his Hulk file and carried it to the kitchen table. He poured himself half a glass of Old Crow and sipped it while he carefully looked over every last one of his notes. 

It had all started with David Banner and Elaina Marks. Well, that wasn't exactly accurate. The Hulk had been spotted before John had made his way to them. Probably he'd been hitchhiking when he'd come across Banner's car, abandoned by the side of the road after Dr. Banner had given up on changing his flat tire and had gone home. Something about the car had triggered John's temper, and the Hulk had smashed it into a heap of junk. From the conversation he'd overheard between Banner and Marks, John, referred to as their friend, was allowing them to do research on him. Jack had seen the results of their experiment. Broken equipment had been everywhere. The memory of it was sharp now, thanks to Molly's help.

Doctor Banner. If only he hadn't run back into that burning lab. What a horrible way to die. He and Doctor Banner hadn't exactly met on good terms. Banner didn't want to answer his questions, and then it had been awkward when Jack had been caught in the closet, spying on him and Elaina Marks. Dr. Banner had looked at him like he'd expected better of Jack before escorting him out of the building and warning him off. He'd said Jack shouldn't make him angry, because he wouldn't like him when he was angry. 

Banner had sounded a little wry when he'd said that. Maybe he was thinking about how John Doe handled anger. 

In a way, it must be tempting for John to just let his anger explode, and turn the Hulk loose to teach whichever idiot who was trying to hurt him a lesson. And yet, he knew that John resisted that as much as he could. He'd begged Jack to not bring out the creature in him.

It was odd the way John referred to the Hulk as the creature, like he was something different from himself. Sure he looked different, but was he really? That psychic girl had said the Hulk was John, despite being huge and green. Something was disconnected between the Hulk and John, in their brain. John didn't remember what he'd done after he turned into the creature, and the Hulk couldn't use language, although he seemed to mostly understand it. After seeing several smashed laboratories and control rooms Jack was pretty sure the Hulk didn't understand much about technology. It frustrated him to the point of tearing it up. 

Was John secretly a much more angry man than he seemed? He'd been remarkably even-tempered when they were together on the mountain, despite Jack not always doing what he was told about taking care of his leg. The Hulk, John, when he was boiling mad about something, didn't stay angry for long, though, judging by what had happened in Las Vegas. 

Maybe John was the kind of guy who would kick the tire of his car when it got a flat, just to blow off some steam. He wasn't the sort to pick fights with other people just because he was annoyed with them. No, his triggers were pain, fear, and yes, anger, but he wasn't turning green over every little thing that ticked him off or scared him. He hadn't changed to the Hulk just because the wolves were chasing them. No, it was fear about Jack being burned or becoming wolf chow that had made him change. His John actually had a pretty good hold on his temper. 

The Hulk had been so careful with carrying Jack and the other people Jack had seen him rescue. The Hulk wasn't bad, or evil. He was just... untamed. How scared John must be when he changed back, not knowing what he'd done. He was like a person who had blackouts because of alcohol or seizures. Losing time, and losing clothes. 

John didn't strike him as the type of guy who'd whip off his shirt to show off his body at the drop of a hat. He remembered it much more clearly now, after his session with Molly, how bewildered and upset John had sounded when he'd explained to Jack that he'd had a blackout, and when he came to, he realized that he'd lost his shoes and that his shirt was missing. He hadn't gotten his memories back yet so the experience must have triggered feelings similar to the first time the Hulk had shredded his clothes.

John was probably embarrassed a lot to find himself in only badly torn pants. Hell, he practically had been naked during that whole Prometheus incident.

Jack sighed. He'd like to see John naked, but that wasn't ever going to happen. It had been a long time now since John had called him, and Jack had to accept that the strange friendship between them was never going to go anywhere. Not when one of them was the hunter and the other one the hunted.


	4. Chapter 4

“On the brink of the dark he stood, with only the dream of the cities, the million books, the spectral images of the people he had loved, who had loved him, whom he had known and lost. They will not come again. They never will come back again.”  
 _Look Homeward, Angel_

* * *

Jack stopped staring out his office window and instead began turning the business card Molly had given him last spring over and over, thinking about giving the doctor a try. 

All of his other leads on the Hulk had dried up months ago. Maybe it would be worth it to see the doc if somewhere in his head he was hiding John Doe's real name. 

God knows his editor would applaud Jack starting therapy. Mark often told him that his Hulk obsession had gotten out of hand. _“Jack, you don't have a life anymore, your John Doe has stolen it.”_

Mark had said lunch was on him today. Mark was a bit of a mother hen. Instead of foisting chicken soup on friends he was concerned about, though, he bought them lunch. Well, he would as soon as Jack finished this ridiculous assignment on whether Farrah Fawcett had become deranged due to her divorce from Lee Majors and shaved her head. She hadn't. He was so sick of tabloid writing. Maybe Mark would give him a real assignment. Another serial killer, maybe. Just, please God, no astrologists predicting the end of the world, or alien babies born to unsuspecting mothers.

Sighing, he laid the card with Dr. Cooper's contact information down and returned to his story. It was pap, but he would make sure it was at least readable.

* * *

At the switchboard, Judy waved a piece of paper at him when he returned from lunch. Mark had sprung for deep dish pizza at that little place that Joe Arnold had unjustly targeted for breaking multiple health food regulations. The prick had set Jill and Karen up, but the two owners had proved that Joe and his muscle guy had brought in cockroaches and dirtied the place up just to do a story. Jack had done the expose, but it hadn't brought him any satisfaction, knowing it was a fellow employee who'd tried to ruin Jill's and Karen's restaurant. 

Mark felt a little bad that it had been a National Register reporter behind the malicious attack on Bruno's, and he liked to throw them business to make up for it. Jack had first stopped by because the Hulk had wrecked the kitchen. The girls wouldn't talk about him but he knew that John had worked there, years ago now. Jack knew the girls kept John's picture on the wall, along with other photographs of customer's birthday parties and couples celebrating anniversaries. He'd looked at it again this afternoon while Mark paid the bill. John had been photographed walking away from the camera and only the back of his head and body was visible. It was a perfect portrait of his John Doe, with his thin frame and wavy dark brown hair and no way to identify his face.

He didn't recognize the name and number Judy had handed him. After he'd hung his jacket up in his office, he settled himself in his chair, and called the man. 

After talking with Peter Carlson, he got his Hulk file out of his desk drawer and grabbed his jacket. If Mark refused to let him go to Dr. Helen Banner-Carlson's and her father's funerals, then he'd take vacation time instead. One way or another, he was going to be there. John Doe had come to that small Colorado town and the only reason that he had ever found for John to do that was David Banner's sister and father lived nearby on a family farm. He'd come once, for what ever reason, and Jack would gamble that he would come for the funerals, if he heard about them. 

* * *

Jack threaded his way through the crowd of people at the funeral home in Treverton, Colorado, keeping a wary eye out for John. He didn't think he'd come by when there were so many other people here, but just in case, he was ready. He patted the tranquilizer gun hidden under his long jacket. 

God, what a hard time this family had endured: The mother dead when David and Helen were children, David dying in the lab fire, and now Helen's death in an automobile accident, the shock of her death bringing on a heart attack for her father. She had married two years ago, and was survived by her husband, Peter, and her seven month old baby.

He waited his turn to pay his respects to the man who had called him, after finding his number in Mr. Banner's address book. Peter Carlson was a tall muscular blond man in his late thirties, and he held his sleeping son with one hand, the baby's dark head nestled into his father's neck. 

“Hello, I'm Jack McGee. I'm so very sorry for your loss. Helen was a brilliant woman, and she and Mr. Banner made me welcome when I met them a few Thanksgivings ago.”

“Mr. McGee, thank you for coming, and all the way from Chicago. Helen never mentioned you, I don't think. Did you grow up here in Treverton, too?”

“No, I'm originally from St. Louis.”

“How did you know the family?” asked Peter, and patted his son's back when the baby made a snuffly sound.

“I knew David Banner.” He was stretching the truth on that last part. It was a lot more accurate to say that he'd met Helen's brother. But he'd watched the man sacrifice himself to try to save his childhood friend and colleague, and he'd made a promise that his killer would be brought to justice. He might not have known Dr. David Banner, but he was bound to him, all the same.

“I never met her brother, he died a couple of years before I met Helen.” Peter's eyes grew shiny and he blinked hard. 

“He was well liked, and a very, very smart man.” Jack said.

“Helen had a hard time talking about him, about his death, but she told me a lot of stories about the two of them growing up. He was a little scientist doctor type even when he was a kid. She used to pretend to still be annoyed with him for dissecting her doll when she was five and he was seven. She told me that whenever she wanted him to do a favor for her, she'd bring up the doll story. I think she had her big brother wrapped around her little finger.”

Jack smiled, charmed by the story.

Peter said, “The woman who died with him, she was a friend of Helen's and David's, too. Her family moved away from here when she was in college, I was told.”  
The baby stirred and arched his back, his father's big hand keeping him from falling. Peter turned him around and held him in the crook of his arm, one finger tracing the soft baby features. “This is Peter David Carlson. We, we call him Davy.” 

Jack wasn't much for babies. They were kind of incomprehensible to him, but he held out a finger and Davy grabbed it and tugged it into his mouth. Jack felt a sharp little tooth as the baby used his finger as a teething ring.

Jack looked up into Peter's eyes, wondering how the guy felt about Jack's finger being in his son's mouth, and saw that a few tears had slipped down his face. Jack said awkwardly, “Is there anything I can do for you?” He was so bad at things like this. He remembered his parent's funerals and how he felt so exposed and numb at the same time. 

“Ah, would you hold him for a moment? I'd like to head to the john, and...” Peter swiped his cheeks with his free hand and Jack took Davy from him, holding him the way his father had been doing.

Peter bent and kissed the top of his son's head and nodded to Jack. “Thanks. I'll be right back. If he starts to cry, jiggle him and walk around.”

Jack remembered that David Banner's father and sister had been proud that there had been family working their farm since the Civil War. He wondered if little Davy here would grow up farming the family place like his grandfather and mother or if he'd leave his home town, like the uncle he was named for had done. He felt the baby start to stiffen, so he walked around the room to distract the little ankle biter. 

And in case John Doe made an appearance after all, he made notes of places in the renovated mansion where he could sit or stand unobtrusively.

* * * 

John didn't come that afternoon or evening, Jack was sure of it. Maybe John hadn't heard about the deaths after all. But if he had, and if there were people here that could identify him, know him for someone who'd escaped from prison or who was wanted by the police, or was faking his death, then he might come to grieve by the graves privately. The more Jack thought about it, the more it made sense to him that John must have known David Banner. John came to him and Doctor Marks for help, but it was David's family he came to see, that Thanksgiving almost three years ago. Maybe he thought Doctor Banner had notes here or had confided in his sister, who'd been a scientist as well. Or maybe he knew David's family and had come to visit.

Jack had eaten Thanksgiving dinner with the Banner family, because a missing relative was unable to come at the last minute. Jack remembered telling Helen and Mr. Banner that it had been awhile since he'd had a home cooked meal. The TV dinners he heated up for himself in his little apartment were about as inventive as he ever got in the kitchen. 

He had a strong suspicion that the missing _relative_ had been his John Doe. 

* * *

Jack had stayed at the funeral home, meeting more relatives and friends of the deceased. He lurked in quiet corners where he was able to watch the people coming and going, until it closed. He didn't plan to attend the funeral the next morning, but he would be on stakeout duty. The service was in a small church in town, but the graveyard was on the family farm. He'd been told it was a small plot where Banners had been buried for many generations. 

The next morning he sat in his car outside the church and watched the people in their somber clothing entering; he left once and checked to see if John had slipped into the church through a back door and was hiding, but he hadn't come. Jack returned to his car, and sipped on coffee as he watched.

Davy had apparently started crying at one point, because Peter appeared outside with him about twenty minutes after the service began. Jack could hear the baby begin to wail again, as his father tried to soothe him. Then Peter's mother came outside and handed Peter a bottle. Davy cried a little more as his father tried to get him interested in sucking it, but soon the baby settled down and the Carlson family went inside. 

Jack had never seriously thought about having kids. None of his girlfriends had stuck around long enough for that topic to even be brought up. Well, not brought up with him, at any rate. Maybe they'd assessed him for potential husband and daddy duty and decided to cut him loose because he didn't measure up to their standards.

He thought that John would have made a good father from the way he'd fussed over Jack when he was hurt and by the way he acted in a quiet, calm manner most of the time. Except when he turned into the Hulk, of course.

Even when he was being ferocious, John wouldn't hurt a child. He'd interviewed an abused kid who had seen John turn into the Hulk, and the Hulk had been as protective about the boy as the boy had been about the man who'd transformed in front of him. The Hulk had snatched a baby once, but it turned out that John had done it to save the kid from being abandoned by the mother's crazy brother-in-law. He'd interviewed the mother after she had settled in with an aunt; she had been disbelieving at first that John actually was the Hulk, but he'd seen enlightenment cross her face finally. She told him how the Hulk had taken her kid, but that John had brought him back. The baby had been unharmed; the Hulk had saved his life.

Dr. David Banner's wife had been killed in a car accident. He suspected that they had planned to have children. David Banner had been a good man. Jack had investigated him when he'd written an article on the two people the Hulk had killed. He would have been a good father, as he was known for his kindness to others and for giving a helping hand where it was needed. 

Jack's father had been a good man, too. He'd always been a soft touch and had run every business he'd tried to make a living at into the ground because of it. He'd helped a lot of people, but his father had also been taken advantage of by some who weren't in genuine need. Jack had grown up leery of other's motivations because of seeing his dad flim-flammed. Being suspicious of others made him a good reporter, he knew. He didn't just buy what people tried to sell him. 

Sometimes he wished he was more like his father, though. Maybe he'd sleep better at night. 

* * *

Jack had just about given up waiting for John to appear at the Banner family cemetery. The small graveyard, with its modest headstones was tucked away on the outskirt of the family farm. He finally heard the sound of someone walking quietly down the road, and he felt his body tighten up with tension. Jack was well-hidden part way up a hill and had brought supplies for a lengthy surveillance. He saw birds startling into the twilight; alerted, he trained his binoculars on the road and wasn't disappointed to see the silhouette of a slender man approaching.

The man stopped on the road, his features unreadable to Jack in the dusk. He just stood there looking toward the two graves rounded with dirt, covered in flowers. In sudden empathy, Jack understood that John didn't want to take one step off that road. 

Jack heard the sound of a pickup truck, the lack of muffler identifying it to Jack as the same one that had been tearing up and down the road over the last two hours. He suspected that the inhabitants, a couple of rowdy guys with excellent vocal chords and a habit of half hanging out the truck window, yelling, “Whoo-hoo,” had been drinking. They'd thrown a few cans of something out the window a couple of times as they'd torn past the graveyard. 

John moved a few feet onto the edge of the grass as the truck roared down the road, music blaring from the open windows. Before the truck reached John, though, it started to swerve. Another can flew out the window and Jack watched in horror as the truck straddled the shoulder and the road, the driver losing control. John scrambled to get out of the way, but he stumbled and the truck clipped him as it sped by. 

Jack dropped the binoculars and ran, tripping over vegetation. By the time he reached the bottom of the hill, John's body was shaking, his legs growing, pants splitting, boots peeling off his feet, his skin turning green. The Hulk stood up, tall and as menacing as ever, and threw the remains of John's shirt and jacket from him. He stepped out on the road and clenched his fists and roared in the direction of the truck. 

Jack ran to the edge of the road, and looked for the truck. He could barely see its tail lights. The Hulk started to run down the road after it, then slowed to a stop. He turned, and Jack watched, mouth dry, as the Hulk took one slow step after another until he'd passed Jack and stood in front of the two graves. 

Jack moved quietly closer while the Hulk's attention was focused on Helen's and Mr. Banner's graves. He loaded his tranquilizer gun with the special dart to incapacitate the Hulk's huge body.

The Hulk roared again, and fell to his knees. He pounded the ground next to the graves, and Jack could hear pain in the sound. God. So much pain. He carefully put the gun into his jacket pocket and moved painstakingly closer to the monster he'd been chasing for so many years. He was near enough now that he could see that the Hulk was crying, tear tracks glistening on his cheeks. 

The Hulk was crying. 

Jack couldn't shoot the Hulk while he was crumpled like this, grieving. He just couldn't.

He took one slow step after another until he was within arm's reach of the Hulk. He said softly, “John.”

The Hulk looked at him, misery and bewilderment in his expression. 

Jack reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “John, I'm sorry. I'm not sure who they were to you, but I can see that you loved them.”

He kept his hand on that hot, green skin, and the Hulk wept. 

* * *

Jack lost track of time, but it had been fully dark for a while before the Hulk finally moved. He crouched down in front of each grave and laid a massive hand on top of each headstone, and then moved over to an older grave, and delicately traced the inscription. Jack took out a small flashlight and shined it on the gravestone.  
The mother, Mr. Banner's wife, was buried here. She'd died when David and Helen were just little kids. 

The Hulk gave a huge sigh. He started trudging away, towards a hill at the edge of the graveyard. Jack started following very close behind him, and the Hulk turned around and gave Jack one of those long looks. He wasn't angry; he looked lost. And very tired. The Hulk was going to change back soon, Jack just knew it.

On impulse, he held out his hand and after a moment the Hulk took it. They walked hand in hand, man and creature, and the Hulk found a path that led up the hillside. Jack shone his flashlight ahead, although he suspected that John didn't need it. 

The terrain grew steeper until the Hulk brought them to a little clearing that had once been a children's play yard. There was still the remains of a tire swing on the ground. He dropped down heavily on a long rock that served him as a bench, and Jack sat down next to him, barely breathing. 

It was going to happen. It was really going to happen at last. He was going to see the true face of the Hulk, of his John Doe.

The Hulk looked at him again, his eyes going wide and dazed. Jack squeezed his hand. “It's all right, John. It's all right.” The Hulk shut his eyes and swayed a little.

The hand in his began shrinking. John's skin lightened. His hair began changing from the crazy looking brushy mop to John's normal curly, wavy, dark brown hair. His face became smaller, the brutish look, the bushy eyebrows, all melting away.

Jack held his breath. He brought the flashlight up, cupping his fingers over the end so that the light was diluted. He didn't want to blind John. 

John let go of Jack's hand and put both hands up over his face, touching his altered skin. He breathed deeply, and the last of the green tinge faded from his much smaller frame.

Jack brought up the light and saw that while John's face was mostly hidden by his hands, his eyes weren't. The irises were changing, from a pale green to white to a deep gray hue. He looked dazed, shivered hard.

Jack put his arm around John's shoulders and with his free hand, he gently pulled John's hands, one at a time, away from his face. He picked up the flashlight he'd laid down on the rock and carefully used it to light up John's face. 

What he saw made his heart stutter. It couldn't be, it couldn't be! The flashlight fell from his hand.

Jack had chased this man all over the country and Mexico. He'd banked on John Doe's story being his ticket to a Pulitzer and to getting his column back. Jack's arm tightened around John's shoulders, and his friend looked at him without any true understanding that Jack had recognized him.

Jack's heart was beating too hard, too fast. His hands were tingling and he couldn't get his breath. He felt terrified, and everything was so, so wrong. 

He wanted to run away and he wanted to crawl into a hole and never emerge and he wanted to hug the man next to him and whisper to him over and over and over that he was sorry. 

He was so damned sorry.

He couldn't even get enough breath to say this man's, this poor son-of-a-bitch's name.  
Jack, suffocating, _because all the air on this steep hillside had evaporated_ , clung to John and watched the awareness of what was happening come back into those puzzled eyes.

Only he wasn't John Doe anymore. God.

He looked into David Banner's resigned eyes, and it was the saddest goddamn thing he'd ever seen.

Then Doctor Banner said in the same firm tone he'd used after the plane crash had left Jack with a broken leg, “Jack, you're having a panic attack. Put your hands in front of your mouth and breathe through them. You're going to slow down your breathing now. Do what I say and you'll be able to catch your breath.” 

He took Jack's hands and cupped them in front of Jack's mouth and held them there and told him when to breathe and counted out a rhythm for Jack's exhalations.

Slowly, slowly, Jack started to feel like he wasn't dying anymore. John, no, David started rubbing Jack's back, still counting a rhythm for Jack to breathe by.

God, this was what he'd been hiding from himself. He'd been afraid to voice what all the damned clues had been pointing at, starting with how Banner's body had never been found. Jack had testified that he'd witnessed David Banner running back into the burning building and not coming back out. It was his fault that Banner had been declared dead. Jack's sighting of the Hulk carrying Elaina Marks had resulted in the creature being wanted for questioning in her's and David Banner's deaths. 

Jack McGee had been the reason that David left his home and career and became a fugitive. It was his fault that this man, this kind and compassionate man, had gone hungry and slept on benches and been hurt who knows how many times. 

He'd made it his personal crusade to hunt down the Hulk, and every time he showed up after a Hulk appearance, John, no, _David_ had to run again. 

David. He deserved to be called by his real name. All those aliases where David had used his real first name, and a last name that started with a “B,” maybe he'd been holding onto the last bit of who he was and not think of himself as just a nameless drifter.

“Are you feeling better yet, Jack?” David shivered in the cool night air of Colorado in October, and Jack took one last deep breath and stood up.

He pulled off his jacket and offered it to David. Now that he wasn't providing medical care, David looked up at him with trepidation and exhaustion. He was holding himself so still, as if he would shatter if he moved. 

“Put it on, David. You're cold.” When David made no move to take it, Jacadded, “Please. John, uh, David. Please. I can only guess what you're thinking right now, but I'm not your enemy. I only want to help you.”

David's glance was full of despair. “I know,” he said softly. “You've been telling me for years that my capture would get me the help I need.”

Jack nodded frantically. “Let me help you.”

David looked at him for a long, long moment, and Jack saw some of the Hulk's bewildered expression in that gaze. 

“Jack, I'm not going to just let you take me to the police, although to be honest, sometimes I think I belong in jail. But I know that being locked up would only make things worse.”

“You're alive. I can't believe that you're alive.”

David shivered. “You know my secret now. This time tomorrow I expect that it will be the top story for the National Register.”

“No, Jo-, David, I--”

“But for all the reasons I told you before, I'm afraid to turn myself in.”

“David, I won't tell anyone you're... him. Not the police. You aren't wanted by the government or the army, but I'll keep my mouth shut if they ask me about you.”

David made a sound that tried to be a laugh, but failed miserably. “Jack, I become a loathsome creature. The government was ready to study aliens; I'm betting that by now there's a research group looking for me, to study this mutation.”

“But... maybe they could figure it out and help you.” Jack wasn't sure he even believed that anymore.

“I'm afraid I'll just be a walking weapon to them. A mindless angry bomb they can re-create or point at an enemy.” David wrapped his arms around his chest and huddled in on himself.

“J-David, the Hulk isn't loathsome or mindless. You don't remember what happens when you change, do you? He cried. You cried, down at the cemetery. For your... sister and father. David, I'm so sorry for your loss.”

He sat down again next to David and put the jacket around his shoulders. David glanced at him, and Jack read the refusal in his face. Then the corner of his mouth made a wry gesture, and he shrugged it on. David crossed his arms again, tucking his hands tight against himself. The look he gave Jack was so hopeless, so sad. Jack put an arm around him and drew him close. 

David let him. How beaten down David must be feeling, to accept comfort from the man who'd made his life miserable.

“David, I promise that I'm not going to write the story.”

“You've been waiting for years to write it, Jack.”

“No. I'm responsible for what happened to you. I made you a fugitive, and I'm so sorry. I told the police that the Hulk was a killer. The Hulk didn't kill Elaina Marks, I believe you now about that.”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“You experimented on yourself, and something very bad happened, didn't it? It changed you.”

David pushed away from Jack a little and shook his head. “What happened to me was my fault, not yours. I wanted. I wanted so many things, and I had the hubris to force a change upon my own body to prove my theory. At least the lab fire destroyed my notes, and with Elaina gone there isn't anybody else who knows what exactly I'd been so obsessed with researching. Except, I guess, Fletcher. He must have taken the tapes out of my bag and kept them.” 

“What were you trying to prove? I know it has something to do with the sun.” Jack thought about the lab in the old Clive house and the strange machinery that had opened to the sky.

David shook his head. “I don't trust you with that knowledge, Jack. And right now, with the shock of finding out who I really am, you're making promises that I don't think you can keep.”

“I give you my word that--”

“Once you go back to Chicago, you'll change your mind. This is your Holy Grail, remember? Your way off the Register. The temptation will be too strong and you'll give me up.”

“I won't. David, I won't.”

David closed his eyes for a moment. “You told me once that if you had to choose between the other guy and you, you wouldn't pick the other guy. I'm the other guy, remember?”

“I take it back, okay. I'm picking you.”

David said, “I don't believe you. But I'm warning you, if you try to make me your prisoner, I'll fight you. Please, please, don't make me risk bringing out the creature in me.”

“I can't ask you to trust me, well I can ask, but it's pretty clear that you won't do that, but I won't hurt you, J- David. This changes everything, don't you see? I went after you because I thought you were a killer.”

“You thought I was lying to myself.”

“I swear, I won't try to capture you any more. You can walk away whenever you want. Reach in my jacket pocket, but be careful. There's a tranquilizer gun in there and I'm giving it to you. Shoot me with it, or throw it away, it's all I've got to show you I mean what I'm saying.”

David shook his head, a small gesture of disbelief, but brought the gun out of his pocket and stared at it.

“Are you still using curare?” 

“Yes. I've been assured that it won't hurt you.”

“Uh-huh. Tell me, Jack, are you willing to risk your own life on those assurances?” David held the gun in his lap and looked sternly at him.

This was David Banner, John Doe, and Jack made a leap of faith.

“I would risk it, but you won't. You won't even point the gun at me, in case it might go off accidentally.”

David sighed, and tossed the dart gun down on the ground. 

“Curare is dangerous, Jack. Too much, and the lungs stop working. I really doubt that you've had the dosage right for me or the Hulk. If you had accidentally gotten some in a cut or the dart slipped and you stabbed yourself, you could have died. Please, if you change your mind and start hunting me again, get something that won't kill either you or me.”

David sighed again and drew his bare legs up, wrapping his arms around them, the tattered remains of his pants hanging loosely, no protection from the cold and the breeze. He laid his head on his knees. 

“What now, Jack? My sister and father were buried today, and I haven't slept in, oh... probably forty hours. Are you going to call the police and tell them I'm alive?”

“No.”

“It's not a crime to disappear and let people think you're dead. Unless you commit fraud, and I haven't done that. My life insurance policy lapsed after Laura died and I didn't renew it. Nothing was paid out. I let a lot of stuff slide; the only thing that I focused on was my research.”

He stared at Jack, lost in thought again. Jack kept very still, feeling like he had approached something wild. If he just kept quiet, then the wild thing might accept him, trust him. 

Finally David said, “If you tell them I'm the Hulk and I'm picked up by the police then I expect they'll keep me for questioning about the lab fire, but it was an accident.”

“David, I--”

“From what I was able to learn, it started in a supply closet. The chemicals in there were improperly stored. The Hulk, well, me, we, I, neither of us set the fire. The evidence will show that.”

“The Hulk was still wanted as person of interest, last I checked.”

David shrugged. “Maybe they'll still try me for Elaina's death, I don't know. And maybe I'll be arrested for destroying a lot of property, vandalizing places. I know I've shoved and tossed people who were trying to hurt me or somebody else. I guess charges could be brought about that, if any of those people wanted revenge. But regardless, once I'm on the government's radar they're going to want to take me into custody to study.”

“You don't know that about the government, but would it truly be a bad thing to have some of the country's smartest people trying to cure you? They could give you a safe place to live, protect you.”

David shook his head. “They won't want to cure me, they'll want to use me to make soldiers more powerful. Super soldiers, Jack. I don't want that on my conscience.”

“You're sounding a little paranoid, David.”

“After being in that underground research center for studying aliens and being chased by the country's most persistent reporter for years, I'm entitled. You're an investigative reporter. You were nosy enough to get inside the alien research center, why don't you sniff around and see if something has been set up to study mutants or monsters.” 

“Prometheus. That program was called Prometheus. It's still very classified. Maybe I will check around, though, see if mutants and monsters are on the menu now.”

“Well, thank you for that.”

“David, come back with me to my motel room. You're exhausted, you need to sleep. I swear I won't call the cops. It's a little overdramatic, but you remember me talking about my Pop being a good man, a lot different from me? Well, I swear on his memory.”

“Mmm.” David lifted his head and looked around. “This is our special place where Helen and I used to come when we were kids. We pledged to always help each other if we were in trouble.” He made a small sound, partly a troubled laugh and partly a sob. “Oh, God, I've been in so much trouble since Laura died.” He hugged himself tighter, holding himself so still, so tense and wary. 

“Let me help you. Please, David, at least let me give you a bed to sleep in tonight, get you something to eat.” Jack laid a hand on David's leg, felt the cool skin. “If you don't have any more clothes with you in that bag you were carrying, I'll give you mine. Do you need money? Are you hurt from the truck hitting you?”

“I'm sore, but nothing's broken. Jack, I shouldn't go with you. I shouldn't even be sitting here. I should be running away, but I'm tired.”

Jack put his arm around him.

“I'm so tired of everything, Jack.”

Jack turned a little and wrapped fingers around the other man's calloused, rough hand. David didn't pull away, though. Instead, he tightened his own hand around Jack's fingers. 

David said, a hitch in his voice, “Helen's gone, my father, Laura, Elaina, Carolyn, everybody that I've loved, all my family, they're all dead. Sometimes I wish I was, too. It would keep the creature from destroying any more of my life.” 

David stared at Jack for a long duration, his thoughts somewhere else. Jack had seen that expression on the Hulk's face earlier this evening, at the cemetery. David Banner was lost. Drifting, rootless, nothing to anchor him except the hope of a cure, and right now he didn't sound like that was enough. Was he even still trying to find a way of getting rid of the Hulk?

“You're not the last of your family. What about Davy?” 

“I'll never get to know Helen's son. I'll never be able to hold him, watch him grow up.”

“David, you can't give up hope. That's just not you, not the guy who hauled me up and down a mountain and kept me from giving up. It's my turn now, and you're coming with me. I won't stop you if you try to leave, but I hope you won't run. Not tonight, not when you're so beat. C'mon.”

He stood up and held out a hand, hoping that David would take it willingly. But if not, he'd haul him up by an arm and hustle him down this hill and into his car. He'd take him to the motel and put him to bed. He didn't think David would fight him on that. No. He wouldn't bully David into being taken care of, even if it was what David needed. But he really hoped David would trust him enough to take his hand and cooperate. 

David looked up at him, exhaustion smeared across his features.“You swear on your father's name that you won't call the police or turn me in tonight?”

“I swear it.” Jack waited, and David looked hard at him, muscles tensing to jump up and run, then they seemed to deflate; he seemed smaller, vulnerable again.

“You finally caught me,” he said, as grasped Jack's hand. Jack helped him up. When David started to sway, he put an arm around his waist, steadying him against his own body.

“I did. And now I've joined the club.” Jack picked up the gun and put it in his pocket, not wanting somebody to find it and poison themselves. They started to descend, careful of David's bare feet, the flashlight pointing the way.

David stumbled and Jack caught him. David didn't pull away when Jack pulled him closer to him. Jack let him rest, his weight against Jack.

“What club?” 

“The David Banner one. It's one I kept running into when I was searching for you. Everybody in it was looking out for you by misdirecting me, or by outright denying knowledge of you. You have a way about you, Doctor Banner.”

David made a disbelieving sound.

“You do. People want to protect your secret, or if they don't know about the Hulk, they just want to make sure the nosy reporter can't harass you. You've left a trail of friends behind you, if you didn't know. Even Fletcher, and he was desperate for a good story to redeem his career.”

“I... I don't usually go back or call the people I've met. It's just too hard. I have to live in the present. It's mostly in dreams that I think about the past.”

“Good dreams, I hope?” Jack doubted it, though.

“No. Not usually.” David said, and Jack felt him shivering.

“You've been so alone, haven't you?”

David whispered yes, so low that Jack almost didn't catch it, even though he was as close to him as he could possibly be.

David said, a little louder, “I didn't see my sister and dad for three years after they thought I'd died. I promised to call them once a month, though, after I came back here a couple of years ago. It was how I learned about Helen's and Dad's deaths.”

“Ah, I wondered if John Doe would find out. Your brother-in-law called me; your dad had kept my card in his address book and Peter was calling everyone about the news.”

“My sister really loved him. They had such a short time...” David took a deep breath. “Jack, you need to know that sometimes I have nightmares and I change. I don't realize it's even happening, because I'm asleep. Still want me to share your room tonight?”

“I'm not letting you sleep on a bench or in a phone booth or curled up in an alley somewhere. You don't have the money for a room, right?”

David looked down at his feet. “No.”

“Thought so. You would have mentioned it already, if you had. I think that the Hulk and I have an understanding. As long as I'm not trying to shoot him with the dart gun, he seems to trust me. You seem to trust me. I'll just try to calm him down and if he runs off, I'll follow him and take care of you when you change back. Ready to keep walking now?”

David nodded, and Jack stepped away from him. They made their way back to the cemetery without any more conversation between them. 

David stopped at the graves, and knelt. Jack gave him some privacy and found David's bag and collected up his own stuff. He spent some time looking up at the stars, thinking about how much he'd made this man's life miserable over the last six years.  
After a half-hour had gone by, he slowly walked over to where David was slumped on the ground. He laid his hand on David's shoulder, the same way that he'd touched the Hulk. David, tear stains on his face, breath hitching, looked up and nodded. Jack helped him up, and David ran his hand over the gravestones of his father, sister, and mother the same way the Hulk had done. 

Jack shouldered David's bag and together they walked to where Jack's car was hidden next to a gravel lane a bit further down the road. They were silent on the ride back to the motel; David's eyes were red and he mostly stared out the window. Jack wondered if he was remembering growing up a farm boy and climbing these hills, fishing the creeks and rivers. From what he'd gathered, David liked the woods and fishing. He'd spent months camping down in Mexico before Jack had tracked him there. 

At his cheap motel, Jack went in and dropped David's bag on the bed. David stood in the doorway. He looked wrecked. The jacket Jack had given him was only partly buttoned, David's bare skin still visible. His jeans were in tatters and he was barefoot. Jack could read the uncertainty in his expression.

Jack caught David's eye and said, with as much conviction in his voice as he could, “I gave my word, and if you've learned anything about me at all over the last six years, I hope you've learned that I keep it. You're safe, David. I'm going to let you get cleaned up and if you need any other clothes, help yourself to mine. I'm going out for a food run. If you leave, I won't chase you. It's up to you. I'm taking the key with me, so lock the door, okay?”

He picked up his door and car keys and David stepped into the room. He gave Jack another one of those searching looks, and Jack smiled wryly at him before shutting the door.

David would either be here when he got back, or he'd be in the wind again. Either way, Jack would keep his word. He wouldn't call the cops or announce to the world that Doctor David Banner was the Hulk.

* * *

He wasn't gone long. Treverton had a Wendy's still open and he went through the drive-thru, picking up a couple of burgers, fries, and cokes. Returning, he knocked on the door and then unlocked it; when he saw the empty room, he sighed and put the bag of food and the drinks down on the desk in the corner of the room. So David had decided not to trust him. 

Then he noticed the sound of the shower running, and he blew out a long breath. He turned on the news and sat down on the bed, idly taking in today's headlines. An Arab delegation and President Reagan just wound up six days of talking about peace in the Middle East, and the Epcot center in Florida had held its grand opening. Old Mickey Mouse had come a long way since the days of Steamboat Willie, he thought. 

He turned the TV off when he heard David unlocking the bathroom door. Their eyes met when David stepped out of the bathroom, still toweling his hair dry. He had on a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants, and his feet were bare. 

The room was chilly, and Jack frowned. David said, “I don't have to wear your stuff, Jack. I was just saving my other jeans and shirt for tomorrow, but I can change into them now.”

“No. No, it's fine. I told you that you could borrow anything you wanted, remember? No, I was wondering if you're warm enough. I've got a sweatshirt you can wear. Or a flannel shirt.”

David stepped back into the bathroom and hung up the towel; Jack threw him a dark blue flannel shirt and a pair of socks when he returned. “Here. You make me cold just looking at you. I got us some burgers and fries. Hope you eat red meat.”

“I'm not picky. Thanks.” He put on the flannel shirt and buttoned it up; it was big on him and Jack compared David to his memories of the first time he'd met Doctor David Banner. David was thinner than he'd been six years ago. He'd been on the slender side even back then, but Jack guessed he'd lost another twenty pounds or so. David brought the socks over to the desk and sat down in the chair, pulled them on. Jack divided up the food and they ate without talking. 

David looked a little better than he had on the drive to the motel, but his eyes were drooping. His hair was curlier than normal, since it was uncombed, and Jack wanted to touch it, run his fingers through it. 

David threw away their trash, and then he looked at the bed. “Jack I'm not going to kick you out of your bed. I'll sleep on the floor.”

“No, you aren't. If you don't want me in it, then I'll sleep on the floor. Don't argue with me about this. I owe you so much, and giving you my bed doesn't even put a dent in it.”

David glanced at him, then dropped his eyes to Jack's shoulder. “I don't want--”

“I get it, David--”

“To have sex, I--”

“I wouldn't expect that from you, especially not tonight—”

“Feel kind of hollowed out, and I haven't had to--”

“Jesus, David, your family was buried today, but I wouldn't ask--”

“Trade sex for things I need, not yet.”

“You to pay me with sex at anytime, understand. I'm your friend; there's no strings attached, okay?”

David nodded, smiled a little. It stung Jack, made his heart want to break into tiny pieces.

Jack asked, diffidently, “So, do you want to sleep alone or do you want company?”

“Umm. Company. And I think I'm going to try to sleep, all right? I'm so tired.”

Then Jack's curiosity got the better of him. “Have you been propositioned, for pay or for rides?”

David made a face, like he didn't quite get it, and said, “Oh, yes.”

“While you're hitchhiking?” 

"Mm-hm."

“In return for being offered a job?”

“I would find other jobs.”

“For clothes, food?”

“I went hungry.” 

“If you ever, ever find yourself in trouble like that, you call me and I'll wire you money.”

“Jack, I'm not your responsibility. Stop worrying about me, I'll be okay. To tell you the truth, I'm always surprised when somebody wants to swap sex for whatever they're trading. I'm just... me.”

Jack shook his head. “Of course you don't get it. Just take my word for it, David Banner. You're a good-looking guy and sexy as hell. Of course people who see you, meet you, want to sleep with you. I did.”

“You didn't even know what I looked like, Jack.”

“I could tell you were attractive, but I don't try to sleep with every good-looking guy I meet. I don't sleep with many men or women at all. You, your, oh, I don't know, your soul, your personality, just you being you, even when you didn't have a clue about who you were, well, I just wanted you when we were on that mountain.”

David made another wordless, unsettled murmur.

Jack assured him, his voice gentle, “Look, I'm not going to try to seduce you or anything like that. I just want you to feel safe and to get some rest. Okay?”

“Okay.” He smiled ruefully at Jack, and Jack knew he was in deep, deep trouble. He was afraid he was falling head over heels in love with this beautiful, damaged man. 

* * * 

Jack quietly left the bathroom and stole a look at David. He was in bed, and his eyes were closed. On an impulse, Jack pulled the loose gold chain over his head and held the St. Christopher's medal in his hand. He hoped that David would come with him in the morning, but if he went back to running... David didn't stir when Jack slipped the medal that his mother had given him, plus two hundred dollars, into David's bag, zipping it into an internal pocket. 

David was almost asleep when Jack turned out the lights and slid into bed, his own skin damp from the quick shower he'd taken. He often slept naked, but for tonight he wore boxers and a sleeveless T-shirt. David had stripped down to just a T-shirt and boxers, too, folding the shirt, sweatpants, and socks, leaving them neatly on top of his bag. 

Jack lay on his back in the dark, the only light in the room a line at the top of the curtains, edging in from the outside motel lights. David rolled over from his back to his side, facing him, his eyes shut. Jack startled a little when David found Jack's fingers, bringing Jack's hand up to his chest. Within moments, David's breathing had settled into the rhythm of sleep. Jack rolled a little closer to him, so that his arm was more comfortable. His last thoughts before sliding into sleep were of how Mark would be more than happy to drop the weekly Hulk report and to stop shelling out for Jack to travel around the country, chasing after Hulk sightings.

* * *

Sometime early in the morning, before the sun had risen, David woke him up. He was crying in his sleep, sobs shaking his body. Jack sat up quickly, and turned on the bedside light. If David was changing, he wanted some warning. 

But David hadn't reached that point yet, his skin was flushed but not green, his hair mussed but not the rougher hair of the Hulk. 

“David, wake up.” He cautiously shook his shoulder, but David didn't open his eyes. He was sobbing, like a little kid sobs, and he knew David would be embarrassed if he knew he was crying like this. 

He pulled David against him, rocking him, and shushing him, rubbing his back and hoping that either David would stop crying and go back to sleep, or that he'd just stop those heart-rending sounds before he woke up. He didn't mind holding David like this; the guy had lost so much, and the recent deaths probably brought back memories of his wife Laura and whoever Carolyn had been. He'd called out for Carolyn when they'd been on the mountain, he remembered. 

He lucked out. David's sobs dwindled off and his breathing changed back to the slow deep breaths that meant he was still deeply asleep. Jack arranged pillows behind his back and head and turned the light back off. He kept David sprawled against him, though. The increased body contact seemed to have comforted him, and it was little enough to give this man.

Jack fell back asleep eventually, and when he woke it was past ten o'clock. He sat up and glanced around the room. When he saw that David's bag was gone, he slumped back against the pillows. He couldn't in all honesty say he was surprised. 

There was a note for him, and he read the words thanking him for last night – and telling him goodbye. 

Jack packed up his things, including the clothes David had borrowed from him, and checked out of the motel. He didn't know if he'd ever see David Banner again.


	5. Chapter 5

“The shadow of his death lay over their lives.”  
 _Look Homeward, Angel_

* * *

It was a month later when David called him at home. Jack had gotten back from a story in New York on the Reverend Michael William Peterson the Third, the televangelist who was in the middle of a sex and tax fraud scandal that had caught the nation's attention. 

He'd poured himself a healthy drink, feeling the need to wipe out the memory of the sanctimonious prick's professions of guilt and repentance. Give him an honest sinner any day over a hypocrite like Peterson. 

He answered the phone when it rang and almost dropped his drink when he heard David's voice.

“David? Are you all right? Jesus, I just about spilled my scotch on the floor.”

“I'm okay. I didn't mean to startle you. I, well, it's been a month and you haven't run the story on me. I just wanted to know why.”

“I told you I wasn't going to do that. Do you believe me now?” He sat down on the bed, kicked off his shoes.

“I, I... No. I can't let myself believe that you'll drop the story you've been after for so many years. It's better if I keep expecting it. To have hope and then lose it, it's worse than not having any hope.”

“David. You know, I've thought of you as John Doe for so long, I have to keep reminding myself that your name is David. Did they call you Davy when you were little, like they do your nephew?”

“Yes. My mother did. My father always called me David. Funny, hardly anybody ever calls me Dave. Guess I don't look like a Dave.”

“You're right. You don't seem like a Dave.”

 

“Laura called me Davy a lot. A few other people have, too, while I've been traveling. They called me Davy in the prison camp.”

“Do you remember that my real name is John?”

“Yes, we talked about it when we were freezing on the mountain. You told me your mother was the only one who called you that, though.” 

“Just when she had something important to tell me. Or if I was in big trouble. You called me John one night, by the campfire.”

“Well, we were in big trouble and I wanted you to not give up,” David said, that wry note in his voice again.

“Thanks for that. And for everything you did. I would have died if it hadn't been for you.”

“You're welcome. Um, someday I'll pay you back for the money you put in my bag.”

“Forget it.”

David sighed. “Jack, what are you waiting for, with the story? It's driving me crazy. I look almost every day at the Register, to see if you named me as the Hulk.”

“Well, I'm sure Steinhauer – the owner of the Register -- appreciates the business, but I'm not going to break the story. I know you think I'm pretty disgraceful, working for a tabloid like I do, but I've got lines I won't cross. I'm going to keep your secret, Doctor Banner.”

“But why?”

“Maybe from guilt?” Jack swallowed a healthy slug of his drink. 

“Jack.”

“Well, if I hadn't accused the Hulk of killing you and Elaina Marks, maybe you would have stayed at Culver, not taken off as a fugitive. You wouldn't have had to pretend to be dead. I still think that you need other people to help you, but I've done some checking around, and I don't like what I've caught a whiff of when it comes to finding mutants like the Hulk.”

“You have?” 

“Yes. Now you said you know how scientists and the government think, and that they'd want to capture you and experiment on you, not try to cure you.”

“You're not the only one who's done some investigating about that,” David said.

“So, okay, I'm starting to think you're right, from what little I've been able to suss out. I'm on semi-good terms with one of the scientists from the Prometheus project and I've been talking to her. The government is definitely interested in studying mutants like the one they inadvertently captured near the meteor from space. They know that hunk of space junk affected you somehow.”

“That was horrible for me. To be caught half way between the transformation like that.”

“I wish I could have talked to you more. We might have learned a lot about how the Hulk thinks, because you were still able to use language.”

“I remember being confused and not being able to say what I wanted most of the time. Katie, she really helped me.”

“She told me when I tracked her down to talk to her, that you'd saved her life. She said she was glad she was there to keep you from turning yourself over to the Army.”

“I almost did. Because you asked me to do it. But then those men attacked me, shot me with darts--”

“I hope you know I didn't set you up. I was mad as hell that they did that. But, maybe, it was for the best, considering what I've learned since then about the search for mutants.”

“I'm glad you weren't trying to just trap me.”

“No, David. I've wanted to help you ever since I learned my John Doe turned into the Hulk.”

“You must have been so shocked.”

“It was amazing to watch. But listen to me, okay? I'm not going to go over your head about the story. I won't turn you in. Someday, I hope you decide you can trust me on this.”

“Jack, I just don't know what to think. But thank you, at least for this much of a reprieve. And you were good to me, at the cemetery and at the motel, and I, well, it was kind of you. If there's one thing I've learned to appreciate over the last six years, it's kindness.”

“David, do you know where I live?”

“Chicago. Why?”

“Always with the why's. I guess that's the scientist in you, right? Listen, I live in Wicker Park, third floor apartment on North Ashland. Write down my address and I'll also leave word at the office if ah, David... Butler? calls, to give him my home address. If you ever need a place to stay, you've got one with me. It's not a palace, in fact, it's pretty crappy. But you're welcome at anytime.”

“Jack, that's, well, thank you. Umm, I don't think I'm ready to stick my head in the lion's den just yet, though.”

“Just remember this is a standing offer.” 

He gave David his address and directions to his neighborhood and then Jack changed the subject. He asked David if he could call him back and David agreed, gave Jack his phone number. They talked for another hour, about books, about growing up, and Jack told him how little Davy had chewed on Jack's finger.

David had laughed at that. It was good to hear him chuckle. 

“Keep calling me, okay, David? You're a friend.”

“We're a strange pair, aren't we? I, maybe. Goodnight, Jack.” David ended the call, and Jack went to bed smiling that night. 

* * * 

David started calling him more often, at first once a month, then twice and finally, by the time summer was over, they usually talked twice a week. Jack would call him back so David wouldn't have to keep feeding money into the pay phones. David confessed, sounding rather shamefaced, that he'd once changed into the Hulk because he got so mad at the stupid payphone for not working correctly. Jack had laughed at him, and when David got indignant, he laughed even harder.

Jack snickered, and said,“You know, the Hulk could be the country's poster boy for busting up that pay phone. Everybody gets ticked off at them at some time. He could join the revolution against the tyranny of AT&T.”

“You're not funny, Jack. I could have hurt somebody, you know.” 

“Lighten up, Doctor Banner. The image in my head of the Hulk ripping the phone apart is pretty damn funny. Just priceless, really.”

David had grumbled at him, but Jack coaxed him into a better mood by telling him stories about some of the National Register's less than stellar moments. He also told him about the time Patty and the rest of the crew had thought he was going to jump off the top of the building because she had told him he couldn't chase after the Hulk anymore. He made sure David knew there was no chance that he'd actually been thinking about throwing himself off the roof, remembering what the psychic girl had told him about David almost doing that exact same thing; he'd just gone up there for some privacy to go through his Hulk file, and also, to think about whether he should quit. But once Patty was willing to throw him a bone about getting to keep his Hulk story ongoing, he'd played it up.

“Jack, you're a conniver.” 

“I am in a good cause.”

“So, I haven't changed into the Hulk for months now. Is that reward still listed for information leading to my capture?”

“Nope, I let Mark talk me out of doing any more Hulk stories and there's no more reward.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Jack.”

“You're welcome, Doctor Banner.”

They'd talked about a lot of things over the months and Jack learned that years ago David had remarried, but that his wife, Carolyn, had died shortly afterwards of a terminal illness. That had answered his curiosity about why David had called her name in his sleep when he'd had amnesia, lost with him on that mountain. 

David admitted that it had been him in the slum apartment, not Mike Cassidy, and he apologized for slamming Jack into the wall. David hadn't really been angry, or he'd have turned into the Hulk, Jack reasoned. He'd been acting, trying to throw Jack off the scent.

Jack remembered David's shocked face when he'd opened the door and had seen Jack. He kicked himself for accepting the police detective's theory that the man he'd seen had been Mike Cassidy, career criminal, and not Doctor Banner, who had died years earlier in a lab fire. He knew now that he'd been fooling himself, one of the many clues that he should have put together years earlier that the Hulk was David Banner. He hadn't really wanted to know the truth; he hadn't wanted to accept his own guilt.

He told David about growing up in St. Louis, and fighting in Korea. David talked about being a medic in Vietnam after college, then going to med school and getting a Ph.D in biology. David told him about Cal, the sweet-natured biker he'd traveled with for a while. He'd been the second and last man he'd had sex with; like the sex he'd had with Jack, they'd just given each other hand jobs. Jack told him about dating Patty, his boss's daughter. That had lasted only a week before they got on each other's nerves for the last time and had decided to be friends instead. His last serious relationship with a girlfriend had been years ago. He told David he barely even noticed when they broke up, because he was so focused on finding the Hulk. 

David didn't give him details, and Jack knew it was because he still hadn't earned all of David's trust, but David was working at a place where the research he was doing could cure him. He said it might take another year before the project was to the point that he could try to reverse the damage he'd done to himself. 

The one thing that Jack didn't tell David about was his series of books that he'd based on the Hulk. At first, it hadn't occurred to him, and then he was afraid David would be mad about it and would cut off contact with him again. He told himself that he would tell him someday. When the time was right, he'd explain how he'd been driven to write his John Doe's story in fiction format. 

* * * 

“McGee.” Jack cradled the phone into his shoulder and highlighted a sentence in the data he was reading. He looked at the clock on the office wall; it was almost seven o'clock on a Friday night and he still had an hour or two to put in on this story tonight, if he wanted it to run for the next day's edition. 

“Jack, still staying away from the cancer sticks these days?” He knew that voice with its perpetual smirk. Emerson Fletcher. He hadn't talked to him in years. He'd heard the gossip, though. Fletcher never had made that comeback he'd wanted. His wife had left him, and mostly these days it was rumored the guy lived inside a bottle of Jim Beam. 

“Hello Fletcher. And yes, I'm still a non-smoker these days. You?”

“Smoke like a chimney. I never did try hypnosis, like you did.”

“It's not too late. I tried to quit a few times before hypnosis did the trick. I can give you the name of the woman who helped me. She's good; she and her husband own a bookstore in Old Town. Molly Morning Star, and just go with the hippie stuff, okay? She knows what she's doing.” Jack glanced again at the clock. He was on a deadline here, but Fletcher was another one in the David Banner protection club. He got some consideration because of that.

“I'm going to keep what comforts I have. I noticed you've dropped the Hulk story. Why?”

“The Hulk hasn't been seen for over a year. He's not exactly headline news these days.”

“Who are you kidding, Jack? Finding the Hulk was never about selling papers. You know what? I think you figured out who your John Doe really is, and you don't want to bring any grief down on him any more than I do.”

“Maybe. But I can't show you my cards and you can't show me yours, now can we? So, why did you call me, Fletcher?”

“I might show you my cards, Jack. Come over tonight and we'll talk about it.”

“Fletcher, I've got a deadline on a story. And really, what's the point? So you know who John is, and maybe I do, too. Let's just agree he's a swell guy and we're not going to give away his secret to John Q. Public, okay?”

“Just finish your story and come over tonight. If I decide you're on his side, then I've got something for you. I could destroy the tapes from the interview I did of him, sure. Maybe that's the safer thing to do, but someday, I still hope that John's story can be told safely. Those tapes, in his own words, his own... pain, they're important documentation.”

“And you want me to have them? Why?”

“Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, McGee. Just come. I live in Edison Park. 7239 West Greenleaf, near Brooks Park. I'll be up, come when you're done with the deadline. But come tonight.”

He hung up, leaving Jack feeling like he'd been played. But he'd always wanted to hear what David had said to Fletcher; he guessed he'd do what Fletcher wanted, and go see the man.

* * * 

A car pulled away from the front of Fletcher's house as Jack climbed out of his vehicle. Jack watched it slow down to a crawl as he walked up to the front door, then it sped away. 

Fletcher was a ruined mountain of a man. His muscles and skin seemed to just sag on his big frame, and when he ushered Jack into his modest house, the alcohol smell from the man's pores just about bowled Jack over. What was left of his hair was stringy and greasy, and his scalp looked red and irritated.

He wasn't drunk right now, though. The living room was heaped with pizza boxes, and Jack spied a few empty bottles of Jim Beam half rolled under chairs and sitting on end tables. Guess the rumor mill got Fletcher's preferred poison right. 

“Like a drink, Jack? I know I'm going to have one.”

“No thanks. Fletcher, it's late. Why do you want me to have John's tapes? Why don't you keep them?”

“I have my reasons, and I'm not going to explain them to you. I'm going to sit here and judge if you're worthy to guard those tapes.”

“If I'm worthy or not, right.” Jack didn't know what he was doing here, really.

Fletcher said, “I blackmailed your John Doe into telling me his story.”

“I know. He told me.”

“At first it was like pulling teeth to get him to talk, but then the words started to pour from him. The poor bastard didn't have many opportunities to vent, to put his feelings into words and explain what had happened to him. He wouldn't have if he known I worked for the National Register.” He waved a hand at the furniture and collapsed heavily on the couch where a dirty glass and a half full bottle of Jim Beam perched on the wooden arms.

Jack moved a pile of clothes from a chair and sat down. “No, he wouldn't have. You told him that his story, with his identity protected, would be published in scientific journals where professionals might read it and have some insights into how to help him. “

“I did say that.”

“You lied through your teeth, but then you told him the truth. Honestly, he's been just as surprised that you didn't run with the story to the tabloids as he's been that I've kept a lid on what I know about him.”

Fletcher poured himself a stiff drink and knocked back half of it; he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He tell you how he got into this mess?”

“Some of it. I had figured out he was a scientist, and that he'd done some kind of experiment on himself that had backfired. He hasn't told me the exact details. I don't think he will.”

“Why not?”

“You know, we talk to each other pretty often, but he's still guarded about a lot of things. He doesn't trust me one hundred percent, but he trusted me enough to let me help him one night, one very bad night. He knows if he needs help again, he can come to me.”

“I told him the same thing. He never contacted me, though. Interesting that he talks to you so much.” Fletcher polished off the rest of his drink and refilled the glass. 

Jack looked at his watch, and said, “I think this is a waste of time, Fletcher. I don't know what you want to hear from me. I'm not going to risk telling you his name. Just in case you hadn't figured it out.”

“You're in love with him.” Fletcher dropped that little bomb and raised his glass in a parody of a toast to Jack.

“Still not going to tell you his name.” Fletcher could say what he wanted. Jack didn't care much anymore if people found out he swung both ways. Well, in theory he was attracted to both sexes. He wasn't in a relationship of any sort, and he took care of himself these days, usually after he'd talked with David.

“You're not denying that you're in love with a man?” Fletcher tried to smirk, but he couldn't pull it off. 

“Fletcher, why do you care who I love or don't love? Are you thinking you can blackmail me?”

“Could I?”

“No. That only works if I care about who you tell. For the record, I don't. Once, maybe, yeah, I would have. I'm older now, and I don't give a damn.” 

Jack wasn't bluffing; he really didn't give a damn anymore. Other men and women had been coming out of the closet the last few years and he'd admired them for their honesty. He didn't have any family who might be hurt if he let it be known he liked men as well as women. Mark wouldn't mind, and he was the only person at the Register who he considered a friend. 

“I bet you fell for him during that time when John Doe lost his memories and you two were stranded on a mountain. Weren't there wolves and a forest fire? He told me about it.” 

Jack narrowed his eyes at Fletcher. “He didn't tell you everything about it. He's a private person, he doesn't like being exposed. Hell, he hates it when he changes into the Hulk and comes back to himself with his clothes half gone. He didn't tell you about him and me, not the things that count.”

“No, and I didn't pry. But I've got a lot to sort out tonight, and this interview is done. If I give you the tapes what will you do with them? If he tells you to destroy them, will you do it?”

“I'd ask him if I could listen to them first, but if he said no, well, I owe him. I owe him his life. I'll respect his wishes.”

“I apologized once to him, but you can tell Doctor Banner for me again that I'm sorry for deceiving him. There's my cards, Jack. Let's see your hand.” Fletcher cocked his head at him and refilled his glass.

“My hand? Well, okay, how about this? It's my fault David Banner pretended to be dead and went on the run. I thought the Hulk was a killer, but he's not. I got it wrong, and a good man is paying the price.”

“So, it isn't just because you like him, or love him. You've got guilt driving you. That's good enough for me. I'm giving you the tapes. Sure you don't want that drink now, Jack?”

Jack shrugged. “Yeah, sure, why not. We can drink to Doctor David Banner, the unluckiest son-of-a-bitch who ever botched an experiment, and the best man I know.”

“I'll drink to that toast. It'll make a change from what I usually drink about. I'll get the tapes, glasses are in the kitchen.”

Fletcher heaved himself up from the couch and Jack went into the kitchen to see if he could find a clean glass.

* * *

When he finally got home, it was almost midnight. He took the tapes and relabeled them as interviews with astrologers. He put them in his file cabinet and took a shower, wanting to wash off the stink of Fletcher's house. Fletcher had actually been courteous enough to not smoke while Jack was there, but his house reeked of stale cigarettes and garbage. Jack had put an arm up to his nose when he'd gotten into his Comet GT, and choking, had driven home with the windows down. 

The phone rang and he dashed out of the bathroom, wrapping a towel around himself. He smiled when he heard David's voice.

David said, “I didn't wake you up, did I? I called earlier, but you weren't home. Jack, I found something out today and you've got some 'splaining' to do.” There was an odd note to David's tone, but Jack ignored it. He wanted to tell him about the tapes.

“Sure, but first, do you remember Emerson Fletcher? Big guy, pretended to be me and stole my lead on the Hulk being in Atlanta and blackmailed you into giving him an interview?”

“Oh, yes. What about him?”

“He asked me to come over tonight and after some poking and prodding, he decided to give me the interview tapes. He's a wreck, David. Drinking like a fish, wife's out of the picture, no real job anymore. He sent his apology again, for tricking you.”

David made a sympathetic sound. “Ah, he lost his little girl to Cystic Fibrous. He wasn't doing that well when he cornered me, sounds like he never really recovered from her death. He talked about her. So sad, to lose your child.”

“Think you're right about him.”

“You know, I actually felt better after that interview, until I found out he was really working for the National Register. I'm grateful that he didn't write my story. What are you going to do with the tapes, Jack?”

“What do you think?”

David was making a face, he just knew it. “You want me to say that I know you won't listen to them without my say so, or write the story on those tapes. That I trust you with them because we're friends. Well, I do trust you about them. God knows why, since I read something else very interesting today.” There was that odd tone in his voice again, Jack noted.

“Did you? Do I have permission to listen to the tapes, and what do you want me to do with them? Burn them, hide them, what? Fletcher kept them because he thought that they were important documentation about your condition.”

“Fletcher thinks like a scientist. It's what made him such a good spokesperson for the scientific world. He was really adept at explaining complex concepts for a lay audience. It goes against his inclination and mine to destroy anything related to a scientific discovery. But I don't want them released now.”

“So can I listen to them? Do you want me to send them to you?”

“Yes, you can listen to them. Mmm, I don't think I can keep them safeguarded. You keep them and put them somewhere safe, Jack.”

“Okay. Hey, let me call you back. You're going to run out of change soon, and we don't want you to tear up anymore phone booths, do we? What's the number this time?”

“You bet you're going to call me back, Jack. We've got some new literature to discuss. It's in a genre I don't often read in, but I found these three books to be fascinating. I really liked the heroine, Elaina Banner and the man she's desperately in love with, David, who changes into a giant and smashes things up.” 

Jack swallowed. David, easy-going David, had sounded peeved. “Oh. Well, you remember what we've talked about before, how a writer scavenges characters for their stories?” Jack said, nervously. He really, really should have told David about his books a long time ago.

“Jack.” David's voice had a tinge of a growl to it. 

“Hey, now, David, just stay calm. Deep breaths, okay? What's that number?”

* * * 

Almost a week from the night he and David had spent hours discussing why Jack had needed to write David's story disguised as science fiction, and as David had pointed out, Jack's story, too, there was a loud knock on his apartment door. 

It was late. Jack certainly wasn't expecting any company. It wasn't like he'd been playing loud music or had the TV turned up too loud, so he didn't think it was an irritated neighbor.

He didn't expect it to be the police, either, but two of Chicago's finest were standing there, badges held out in their hands. They looked like detectives.

“Jack McGee?” The larger man, shoulders like a linebacker's, looked Jack up and down, taking in his untucked shirt and rumpled dockers. He'd been reading on his bed, and had kicked his shoes off.

Jack nodded. “How can I help you, ah, Detective?” He shoved his hands down deep into his pockets.

“Sir, you're going to need to come down with us to the 16th. We've got a few questions for you in regards to Emerson Fletcher's death.” The big guy looked around, taking in his room with the bed on one side, the small kitchen against a wall and his desk. 

“I heard about that on Monday. My paper, the National Register, ran a story on his death. Sad. I knew the man, a little. I was at his house on Friday night, he asked me to come over. I heard his ex-wife found him on Saturday morning. What was it, a heart attack? He didn't look in good health at all when I saw him.”

“Get your shoes, Mr. McGee, but don't try anything funny, understand? You can clear up a few things for us when we get to the station,” said the red-haired detective in a slight Polish accent. 

Jack did not have a good feeling about this at all. He shrugged and slipped his shoes on, grabbed his wallet. The detectives escorted him to a police car. He'd probably have to get a taxi back to his place or maybe he could talk the officers into dropping him back off, after he'd satisfied them that he had nothing to do with Fletcher's death. 

* * *

Two more weeks until Jack's preliminary hearing. He'd spent four days in jail, before the arraignment and Mark bonding him out. He still couldn't believe how the cops had built a case against him.

He'd been told that he'd had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to murder Fletcher. He'd been encouraged to confess about his resentment and hatred of the man. They'd brought up how Fletcher had pretended to be Jack and had stolen a lead on a story.

He tried to set them straight. He didn't hate Fletcher, even when he'd been annoyed and angry at how he'd run off with Jack's Hulk file. He hadn't thought about him much for years, not until Fletcher had given him the tapes. The police wanted the tapes, but Jack had stashed them in a safe place. He wasn't going to turn them over, but he stipulated that he was in current possession of the tapes Fletcher and an informant had recorded for a story years ago. 

The police knew he'd been in Fletcher's house that Friday evening. Fletcher's ex-wife had been in the car that had pulled away when Jack had showed up at Fletcher's house. 

She'd recognized him; Fletcher had pointed him out a time or two to her, and Jack's damn picture was always printed with his column. His fingerprints had been found on a glass, from when he'd shared a drink with Fletcher. Jack didn't deny any of that. He'd explained that Fletcher had called him and asked him to come over and had passed along some tapes that related to a story they'd both worked on. The police seemed to think that was significant, that Jack now had custody of tapes that Fletcher's ex-wife had said he'd been very much against Jack ever getting his hands on. 

Fletcher had changed his mind, Jack had told them. Fletcher had been drunk, but alive, when Jack had left the house a little after eleven o'clock. The deceased been seen at 12:30am, Saturday morning by an irate neighbor when Fletcher had thrown an empty Jim Beam bottle at the neighbor's barking dog and ordered the mutt to shut up. 

Jack told them to get the phone records. They'd show that Fletcher had called him, and also that Jack had been home later Friday night, talking on the phone into the early morning hours of Saturday. Despite David's initial disbelief and sputtering over Jack's spinning parts of the Hulk saga into three novels, he'd come around to Jack's way of looking at the situation. It had only taken half the night for Jack to talk himself out of the doghouse with David. 

The autopsy had a few surprises. Fletcher had died from an overdose of sleeping pills and alcohol and one other poison. He'd had curare in his body, and the police asked Jack about his dart gun. They'd interviewed a number of people who were willing to testify that Jack owned a dart gun and darts dipped in curare. 

Jack didn't deny that either. The police got a warrant to search his apartment and confiscated the dart gun and darts for comparison. None of his recent darts were missing, but Jack remembered that he never had been able to find the dart he'd shot in John's apartment in Atlanta.

He guessed Fletcher had picked it up and had declined to give it back to Jack. 

Fletcher had committed suicide, that was the conclusion Jack had arrived at. Fletcher's ex-wife admitted that she had come over to get Fletcher to sign divorce papers. He'd refused to do it. She'd left; Jack had shown up. When Jack went home Fletcher probably had swallowed the pills after drinking enough booze to give himself the courage and then stabbed himself with the dart so that he would be immobile and unable to change his mind and phone 911.

There was no suicide note. No clear fingerprints on the dart either. The cops, the District Attorney, they all liked Jack for Fletcher's murder. Since Jack wouldn't name who he'd been talking to on the phone, citing the Illinois Shield laws for journalists, the red-haired detective told him that anybody could have been in Jack's apartment making that phone call, setting up an alibi for Jack. Time of death had been set between 1:00am and 2:00am, based on rigor, temperature of the body, and lividity. Jack had talked to David from 12:10am until 2:37am, according to the phone records.

Jack's lawyer said it was fifty-fifty how it would go at the preliminary hearing. If the judge didn't think there was enough evidence to have a trial, the charges would be dismissed, although double jeopardy didn't apply. The police could bring charges in the future if they found more evidence. 

There would be witnesses for the prosecution. All Jack had was basically the phone records. Without David to testify that he and Jack had been talking the entire time, it wasn't that good of a defense. He wasn't going to drag David into this mess, though. He'd hurt that man enough over the years; he wasn't going to be responsible for letting the world know that Doctor David Banner was still alive. 

* * * 

Jack hung up the phone, rolled off the bed, stood up and stretched. He'd had another long phone conversation with David about a lot of things, but they'd started off with the tapes. 

David had been guarded on the first tape, but he'd thawed under Fletcher's gentle questions. David was not one to complain, and he downplayed a lot of what he'd endured. Still, the loneliness and sorrow, his desolation and fears, all of his emotions came through very clearly as he explained how he had come to experiment on himself with gamma radiation. 

Jack knew what obsession felt like; he'd lived with it for six years. He recognized it in David's own words: that he'd failed his wife by not being strong enough to lift a car and save her from the explosion and fire from the car accident they'd had when a tire blew out. 

He'd shut off all other lines of his considerable research into genetics and healing, focused on understanding why some people were able to do great feats of strength. He'd found the answer and let his obsession blur his judgment. Some people had the right genetic make-up that allowed gamma rays to increase their strength and endurance. David's own DNA, for example, had those genes. He'd had to stop on the tape until he'd regained his composure. He'd said that if only there'd been naturally occurring high gamma rays the day of his wife's death, he could have saved her. 

In his doomed experiment, he'd calculated the gamma radiation to be comparable to what the sun could emit, but he didn't double-check the equipment and he didn't tell anyone what he planned to do. The gamma radiation machine he'd strapped himself into had not been calculated correctly, another scientist had re-calibrated it and knew it was off, but he'd left it for the next day to fix. David told Fletcher that it hadn't been his colleague's fault at all. He'd left a note about the machine's problem, but David hadn't seen it in time. 

He'd told Fletcher what he remembered about turning into the Hulk for the first time, his vague memories of beginning to smash his own car, of the pain in his shoulder from being shot. He mentioned that he'd been shot and hurt a number of times, but if the metamorphosis took place, he healed at approximately six times the normal rate. He hoped that someday he would be able to research that aspect more thoroughly, after he found a cure.

He talked about Elaina helping him, the fire in the lab, her death. How Jack had misinterpreted what he'd seen, accusing the Hulk of being a killer. He sighed about how Jack kept chasing him, and the close calls he'd had with Jack almost finding him quite a few times. How he never knew what he'd done when he changed, but that he'd found ways to help control himself. He'd learned other ways to handle the anger he felt at times, to do meditation to calm himself and help him accept his life. He felt he'd made progress there, but controlling pain was a lot harder. 

There had been several tapes, and Jack had listened to them four times. He'd asked David his own questions about what he'd heard; David told him his fear that if he couldn't cure himself that he would stay a rootless drifter. He'd put aside the scientist, the doctor, and having any sort of a real life. Friends, loved ones would become an impossible dream, and after a time, he was afraid he'd even forget how to dream.

“It could happen, Jack. Sometimes, hitchhiking, working in the fields, standing on street corners hoping to get picked for a day job, it feels like a doppelganger is trying to take my place. If everybody who looks at me sees me as trash, no good for anything, well, except for getting a blow job from me, it's as if I see me with their eyes. I feel like human garbage, then.”

Jack had felt his own anger rising then at the cretins who would look at David and see his poverty, think of him as just a no-account drifter and show contempt for him. “Let me tell you something. I've talked to a lot of people who've met you; you worked for them, you helped them, you said or did something to make their lives better. They didn't see garbage; they saw a decent man struggling with his own hard times. I know you're a good person, David. If you start to forget that you call me, and I'll remind you.”

He didn't tell David about being accused of murdering Fletcher. Luckily, since the Hulk stories had been dropped from the Register, David didn't read the rag much anymore. He hadn't seen the stories where he and Fletcher had been painted as being at each other's throats and all the speculation on how Jack had murdered him. 

David had asked, “Jack, is everything okay with you? You sound, oh, I don't know, just not like yourself.”

Jack had brushed away his concern, but David had asked again If Jack was all right before they said goodbye. It had been tempting to tell him how Fletcher's death had landed Jack in trouble, but David needed to stay out of this. Jack didn't regret his lie of omission. 

Jack had complained vigorously to Mark about the series of stories on the murder, with the finger being pointed at him, but to no avail. Steinhauer was throwing him to the wolves. Jack was so mad about it that he felt he could turn green.

If Jack hadn't been afraid it would look bad for him to be unemployed at the prelim, then he'd have already quit. He planned on handing in his resignation if the case was dropped. He had some pride, after all, and the books were selling well enough to tide him over for a while. Maybe he could freelance as well as write more books. Move out of Chicago, go live on a beach somewhere. Maybe in Costa Rica or Ecuador. Cost of living was cheap there. He could switch to drinking rum instead of bourbon and talk David into coming with him, if David had to leave this latest research center.

In three days he would have to appear at Cook County Criminal Court. He'd been there before, of course, while doing various stories, but it was the first time he'd be there as a defendant. He refused to think about what would happen if the preliminary hearing went badly and he actually went to trial, or God forbid, prison. It wasn't going to come to that. 

* * *

“All rise. Criminal Court in the state of Illinois, Cook County, is now in session, the Honorable Judge Marvin J. Sadowski presiding.”

Everyone stood, and the bailiff ordered them to sit once the judge, bald as an egg and as tall as Fletcher had been, had arranged himself behind the bench.

Jack watched, numb, as the prosecution had the arresting officers explain the evidence that had resulted in a noose being put around Jack's neck. Then they'd called their witnesses. Although Jack had admitted to being in Fletcher's house, they let his wife, Susan Fletcher, testify that she saw Jack entering the house that evening. They weren't taking a chance on Jack denying what he'd told the police.

Jack felt like rolling his eyes when he saw the other witness, brought to Chicago all the way from Atlanta. Her flowery perfume was so strong he was practically choking on it as Stella Verdugo took the stand, dressed in frills and lace that was really a little much for a woman who was in her sixties .

She was sworn in, her voice dripping with self-importance and satisfaction. She smiled at the D.A., turned and batted her lashes at Judge Sadowski, and gave Jack a little fluttery wave of her fingers.

He shook his head and imitated her wave back at her. Stella Verdugo. She tried so hard to be a southern belle, but she had something a little coarse at her center, no matter how much she tried to imitate Scarlett O'Hara. She'd been another National Register loyal reader, judging by the stacks of old newspapers in her tiny apartment. She'd called the office to claim the Hulk reward, and Fletcher had taken the call, immediately running down to Atlanta. She'd pointed out the man who she'd seen change into the Hulk, and Fletcher had recognized him as Doctor David Banner. 

When Jack had met with her, she'd graciously given him lemonade and had identified Fletcher as the reporter who had told her he was Jack McGee. 

She'd seen Jack break down the door to John's apartment and had watched Fletcher grapple with him to keep him from shooting John with the sedative dart. The fight had been pretty one-sided, since Fletcher had so many pounds and inches on him. Really, all he'd done was wrap his huge body around Jack and lift him off his feet, kept him from getting into the bathroom where John Doe was frantically trying to climb out a window. 

She'd heard Jack demanding that Fletcher tell him what his John Doe had said on the interview tapes. He and Stella had shared a moment of appreciation for the wonder that was the Hulk, beautiful in his strength and sheer primalness. 

He kind of liked Stella, actually. She was a survivor and she must have been a real handful as a young woman. He'd bet his final paycheck from the Register that she still had a couple of old codgers vying for her favors. She didn't get the reward since they hadn't captured the Hulk, and she'd been as persistent about bargaining for a share in it as Jack was about following the Hulk. He didn't know how she'd gotten involved in his current trouble.

It turned out, it was because she was such a fan of the National Register. Once she read the story about Fletcher's death, she'd called the police in Chicago to see if there was a reward for information if his death was ruled a murder. 

She'd happily thrown Jack into the pit of suspicion. She'd told them all about their adventure in Atlanta and her testimony established bad blood between Fletcher and him. When the lab results showed curare in Fletcher's blood, it had been Stella's statements that had cinched it for the cops. After all, Jack had been with the man just hours before his time of death. Nobody had seen what time he'd gotten into his car and driven away. 

Her testimony completed, Stella was escorted to a room to wait in case Jack's lawyer wanted to question her. The judge called for a twenty minute recess before it was the defense's turn, and retired to his chambers.

“Actually, this is Judge Sadowski's bathroom break time. Just be glad that he's called for a recess now, he'll be in a better frame of mind when he comes back and hears the defense,” his lawyer told him, in a low voice.

“Mick, Fletcher and I left Atlanta, well not friends, by any means, but we weren't at each others' throats. See if Stella will admit that Fletcher gave me a cigarette and I took it, after the Hulk had run off. That should show we weren't holding the scuffling against each other.”

“I will. If you can think of anything else that she saw that showed you weren't after the guy's head, well, speak up. I'll certainly bring up the time difference between the fight and now. It was years ago, after all.” Mick Gonzales ran a hand through his dark, thick hair and got up and stretched. “I'm going to follow the judge's example. Too much of mama's chile verde last night. Be back in a few minutes.”

Mick went out a side door for officers of the court. Jack stood up as well, deciding that hitting the bathroom wasn't a bad idea before his fate was decided.

He walked through the gallery to the back of the courtroom, not really paying attention to the throngs of people waiting for their own cases to be heard or whiling away the time listening to tales of other people's misery. 

There was a hand on his arm, and a voice behind him saying, “Jack.”

Jack closed his eyes for a long moment. He knew that voice. Damn it.

He turned around and grabbed David Banner by his biceps. “What the hell are you doing here?”

David's eyes grew larger, and his expression changed. “What am I doing here? Jack, you're in trouble. I read about the charges in your paper. Why didn't you tell me?”

“For a damn good reason. David, you--”

“I'm your alibi. We were talking on the phone, according to the time of death that the paper had listed, unless the Register was making it up.”

Jack tightened his hands and just barely kept himself from shaking David. He hissed, trying to keep his voice down, “I don't want you involved in this! You can't testify, you know that! Here, I'll give you the key to my place, just go there and wait for me. David, what were you thinking?” 

David shook off Jack's hands. He'd dressed neatly; a button down dark blue shirt was tucked into his belted khakis, and his cheap imitation leather traveling bag was slung over one shoulder. He scowled at Jack, and that wasn't an expression he'd ever seen on David's face before. He nodded towards the courtroom doors and marched past Jack, walking rapidly to the doors and stepping out into the lobby, Jack right behind him.

They found a relatively private area against a wall and David dropped his bag and crossed his arms, the scowl still on his face.

David said, “I'm thinking that I need to testify that you were on the phone with me that night, or you're looking at a trial and maybe the death penalty. How does the state of Illinois do it, Jack? It's lethal injection, right? That means you'll be restrained and you'll have sodium pentothal, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride injected into your body by IVs. Is that what you want, Jack?”

Jack stared at him, “No. Of course not. But David, for you to testify, you'll have to prove who you are. The prosecutor could say you were just somebody I paid to say that we talked together that night. You have to be a creditable witness.”

“I know that.”

“You can't tell me your ID is going to hold up if the cops look into it, and they will. I'll just be brought back on charges again and you'll have committed perjury. It won't work.”

David put one hand on a hip. “It will work. I'm not going to lie, and I already thought about the identification problem. I don't have any ID in my name, of course. My file could be sent for from California, and I think there's some people at the IIT Research Center here in Chicago that could identify me. But then I'd have to admit to letting people think I'm dead. Or, Jack, surely you've got pictures of me in your research files. Somebody from your office could send it over, or, do they have one of those new fax machines here?”

Jack shoved his hands into his pockets. “It's irrelevant. I'm not letting you testify, David.”

“Jack, either we do this my way, quietly, and maybe my name won't trigger the cops into looking into me, or I stand up in court and announce that I'm a witness. That will draw a lot of attention and make me much more noticeable. I'm doing this, Jack.” He pushed a hand roughly through his hair and glared defiantly.

Jack grabbed him and pushed him into the wall, putting David on his tiptoes, facing him. “Listen, you, you, self-sacrificing bastard! I've done enough damage to you, I'm not going to be responsible for putting you in jail or in a government research center!”

David licked his lips and Jack realized that his knee had gotten between David's legs, and David's pupils were dilating. He'd grabbed for Jack's shoulders when Jack had unbalanced him and now his left hand snaked under Jack's suit coat, tightening on the strong muscle between his shoulder and neck. 

He was close enough to David to kiss him. David must have read that thought on his face, because David moved his other hand to the back of Jack's head and kissed him. 

David's lips on his started out tentative, but Jack took possession and put all of the years of hungering for just this into kissing the fire out of this beautiful, infuriating man. 

When he finally gentled the kiss, David was breathing hard, and he was, too. He was acutely aware that he and David were in a public place, and he doubted that David had ever kissed a man where other people might watch. And this didn't change anything.

“Look, Banner, I could kiss you all day long, but it doesn't change anything. You can't sacrifice yourself for me.”

He loosened his hold and David slid down a little till his feet were flat on the ground again, but David didn't let him go. “You're a liar, Jack McGee. I should have stopped paying attention a long time ago to what you say and instead look at what you do.”

Jack just gaped at him.

David's fingers on Jack's neck felt so warm. David said, “You've always told me that you'd chose yourself over the other guy, but you know what? When we were on that mountain, you kept telling me to leave you and save myself. You would have died there, Jack, in the fire or the wolves would have got you. You put yourself at risk for your friends in Las Vegas, to help them with their story on the mob. You almost died because of that. You've kept my secret when you told me you'd let me be exploited by your paper. You put yourself into a sociopath's cross hairs in order to find and warn me that he was going to kill me.”

He kissed Jack again, and then once more. “Liar,” he whispered. 

“David...”

He smiled at Jack, warm and knowing. “You're your father's son after all, Jack.”

“Jack, what the hell are you doing? They're going to call court back into session any minute!” His lawyer was looking at him like he was a juvenile delinquent who just got caught shoplifting or vandalizing a school.

Mick gave him a little shove. “Who's this?”

Jack let his forehead fall against David's. “This is David Banner. He's the man I was on the phone with the night Fletcher died. I can't seem to talk him out of testifying, but we've got a little problem. Can you ask for ten more minutes of recess? I'll tell you what you need to know.” 

* * *

Mick Gonzales' request for an additional ten minutes was granted, once the judge was told that a witness had just flown in for the defense. 

Mick hustled them into a small room off to the side of the judge's chamber. He looked at Jack and David. “What you tell me is privileged, so start talking, and keep it concise.”

Jack said, “David Banner was declared dead. We want to keep it that way.” 

Mick shot back, “Why?”

“It's not something we can tell you,” Jack said, shrugging.

Mick muttered under his breath, _“papelito halbla._ ” He ran his hand through his hair again. It was a tell of his that Jack had noticed before, when they'd played poker together. Mick was undecided about what to do. “I need to know if I'm going to navigate this minefield.” Mick pinched the bridge of his nose.

“No,” Jack said. “But maybe we can come up with something the court would accept for ID. David won't perjure himself and right now he's going by another name and any ID he has will fall apart if it's investigated. So--” 

“Do you know that for the last six years Jack has chased a man who changes into the Hulk?” David broke in. 

“Yes. What about it?”

“David, don't--” Jack was silenced by David's hand on his arm.

David crossed his arms over his chest. He might be willing to rat himself out, but Jack could tell that it wasn't easy for him to talk about this. 

“I'm that man. The Hulk was seen escaping from the lab fire that killed my friend and colleague, and since he was carrying her the police thought that the Hulk, me, that I had killed her and Doctor David Banner. When I found out I was thought to have died in the fire, I left, to find a cure for myself. I couldn't control the transformation, and I still can't. At the time, the Hulk was wanted for questioning.”

Jack shook his head. “When _I_ told the police the Hulk had killed you and Dr. Marks, you mean. I've made his life hell. If he's found out now, it's likely that the government would take him and experiment on him. Mick, he's a good guy. He hasn't hurt anybody, he saves lives. He's saved mine a few times.”

Mick stared hard at David. “You change into-- Madre Dios.” He pinched the bridge of his nose once more. “Okay, I'll take that on faith. I've known Jack for years and he's a straight shooter. It's incredible to think you-- I don't have the time right now to talk about this with you, but after court? I have questions. And yes, we might need proof of who you are without mentioning that you're legally dead. It's a crap shoot as to what the A.D.A wants. If you come across as a solid citizen, maybe he won't need verification that you're who you say you are. What state did David Banner die in?”

“California. Six years ago,” Jack said.

“Good, you probably won't ping anybody with your name here in Chicago. And we won't mention that you're a doctor. Or are you a scientist?” 

David looked wistful. “I was both.” 

“Jack refused to name you to the police, citing the shield laws for journalists. You're one of his informants, right? You talk to him about investigative stories? We're not going to mention the Hulk ones. Any other stories you've collaborated on?”

“Corruption of the criminal justice system in the south-west, ah, domestic abuse, government research projects,” Jack named off, remembering the prison camp David had been unjustly imprisoned in and the abused woman he'd tried to help. Jack could truthfully claim that the government story had ended up classified and he wasn't free to talk about it. 

“Okay, we're going to keep this casual. If the A.D.A wants some ID, you left it in...”

“California.” David added wryly, “Umm... six years ago, though.”

“Jack, since he's your informant, would you have anything we can use?”

Jack snapped his fingers. “I've got a picture of David when he enlisted. His sister had sent it to his hometown paper, and I got it when I wrote the story about his death. It's in my Hulk file at home.”

Mick went to a phone on a side table, dialed, and impatiently tapped his foot. “Marta, I need you to come to 26 South Cal and pick up keys to a client's apartment. You're going to get me a file he has there.” He listened, and then said, “Yes, Judge Sadowski's court. I'm going to turn you over to Jack McGee.” He handed the phone to Jack. “Give her directions and tell her where to find your file. Be quick, we're about out of time.”

While Jack did as he said, Mick spoke quietly to David. “If the worst happens, and you are recognized and arrested, do you have a lawyer to call?”

David slowly shook his head.

“I'll represent you if you want me to.” Mick smiled at him. “It'd be an interesting case.” 

David said, “Umm, okay. I have some money. I've actually been working at a good paying job for a while now. I closed out my account and brought it all with me. I expected to go back on the run again. Now, I don't know. I might be able to keep my job under my other name.”

“Well, one case at a time. I'm going to put our southern lady on the stand. Can she identify you?”

“She saw me change into the Hulk once several years ago,” David replied.

“Okay, before she comes into the courtroom, I'm going to stash you in a witness sequestration room. I can keep her talking until Marta gets back here. Jack's done; let's get back before the judge sends out a hunting party.”

Jack hung up the phone and Mick ushered them out of the room.

* * *

Mick went over the police report with the arresting officers, pointing out the state Fletcher's house had been found in. There had been empty Jim Beam bottles scattered through the rooms, and trash and garbage piled up. 

Then Mick put Jack up on the stand. It was a nerve wrecking experience, even though Mick had winked at him when Jack had answered all the questions Mick and he had practiced going over. Mick stipulated that the A.D.A could cross-examine Jack before Jack left the stand but the offer was declined. Jack went to sit back at the defense's table and wiped his clammy hands on his pants. David patted him on the arm and whispered that he'd done fine. Mick had a bailiff escort David out of the courtroom; he'd bring him back when Stella was dismissed and sequestered again. 

Stella waltzed up to the stand when she was brought back into the courtroom and settled herself there like she was attending a garden party at the country club. Mick was gallant towards her when he went over her former testimony, and she preened at the attention. 

He veered into new territory with her, leading her practically by the hand. She very cooperatively testified that she witnessed Jack and Fletcher smoking with each other after their dispute and talking amicably before Jack had left her. 

Mick asked her about the dart gun.

“Why that brave Mr. McGee used it to shoot at the roaring creature,” and she demonstrated how the Hulk had roared. There was a titter of laughter throughout the courtroom, but it died down fast when the judge frowned.

“But Mr. Fletcher, God rest his soul, spoiled his aim. The Hulk, he broke the bathroom wall, and climbed out through the hole. Then Mr. McGee went right out behind him and onto this ledge. See, there was this ledge on the outside of the building. And Mr. McGee,” she waved again at Jack, “he took another shot at the Hulk but it was only to make him go to sleep. He showed me the darts and explained all about that when he came to my apartment. But his gun didn't work right and he fumbled it and it landed on that ledge. And the Hulk he made this big jump down to the ground. My, it was a big jump. Three floors down. And Mr. McGee he reached for his gun, but he lost his balance, and he fell.”

She demonstrated with her arms how Jack had tumbled through the air. 

“But the Hulk, and oh my, he's so strong. His muscles are so big, and he's so tall, he's just beautiful, in a way. Well, he caught Mr. McGee. He held him like Mr. McGee was a child.”

She pantomimed a cradle position with her arms. “Then he put him down and they looked at each other. Then the Hulk ran off, and I didn't get my reward. Not even a little bit of it.”

She sounded a little petulant about that. 

Mick patted her hand. “Miss Verdugo, what can you tell us about the darts that were shot from the gun.”

She smiled at Mick. “Why, Mr. Fletcher, he picked up the one that was in the apartment. He said he would give it to Mr. McGee when he saw him back in Chicago.” 

The A.D.A looked like he'd sucked on a lemon when her testimony was done.

Marta came into the courtroom and quietly opened the bar gate separating lawyers and their clients from the gallery. Mick thanked Stella for her help and offered her his arm, escorting her to an officer who would take her back to a witness room. Crouching down next to Jack's captain's style chair, Marta laid his thick file on the table in front of him and carefully placed his keys on top of it. 

Marta's long, beaded braids brushed his shoulder, and Jack turned a little to look in her eyes. He wondered if she'd glanced through the file. Her brown eyes turned knowing, and she whispered, “I didn't read it, Jack. Tell Mick I'll be in the gallery if he needs me.”

She placed her hand, slim and dark-brown with bright red nails, over his own pale sweaty one. “Good luck.” She tightened her hand around his briefly, and he appreciated her attempt to comfort him. Marta was the sweetheart of Mick's office, a Northwestern law student who clerked part-time for Mick. 

“Thanks,” he whispered back to her. The bailiff escorted David back into the courtroom and he slid back into his chair at the table.

She glanced at David, curiosity about this new witness showing in her expression, and David smiled at her. He had a nice smile and Jack knew that it had opened a lot of doors for David as he traveled the country. He just looked trustworthy. Honest, caring, helpful. He hoped that the judge would see those qualities in David, too. 

* * *

David was sworn in, stating that his name was David Banner, and Mick established that David had known Jack for six years and was one of his informants. Mick asked if David considered Jack a friend, and David responded with a yes. 

Then Mick moved on to the night Fletcher had died. 

“Mr. Banner, did you make a phone call to Mr. McGee on Friday, August 26, 1983?”

“Yes. I called around 9:00pm but he wasn't home. Then I called back later shortly after midnight and talked with him till after 2:30pm. This is Central time; I was calling from California so it wasn't as late for me as it was for Jack.”

“Your conversation was lengthy. Were you relaying information on any investigations Mr. McGee was conducting?”

“Partly. After that though we just talked about some books I'd read.”

“Did Mr. McGee discuss where he'd been that night?”

“Yes. He said that Emerson Fletcher had asked him to come over and had given him some interview tapes that related to an ongoing story of his.”

“Thank you. No further questions.”

The A.D.A'.s cross examination wasn't a walk in the park. 

“Mr. Banner. You stated you've known Mr. McGee for six years. How did you meet?”

“Objection. Irrelevant, Your Honor.”

“Your Honor, Mr. Gonzales is asking the court to accept this witness at face value. Some proof that Mr. McGee and Mr. Banner have actually known each other for longer than it would have taken to find a man willing to say he was the person on the phone with Mr. McGee the night Emerson Fletcher died is necessary.”

“Overuled. Answer the question, Mr. Banner, but keep it short.”

David nodded. “I met Jack McGee in California. He was interviewing people who thought they'd seen something like Bigfoot. I couldn't help him, but over the years I've called him about situations I thought he might investigate. For example, corruption within judicial systems. We got to know each other, went camping together, and I phone him fairly often now. We talk about a lot of things, literature and movies, his time in Korea, my time in Vietnam. He's become a good friend.” 

“Did Mr. McGee ask you to testify for him? Did he offer to pay you for your time and trouble? I'll remind you that you're under oath.” Jack thought that A.D.A. Wilson was trying to tarnish David with that question.

“No, he did not. I read about the case in the paper and flew out. I only talked to Jack, ah, Mr. McGee, during the recent recess. He did not offer to pay me anything and I received no money from him.”

“You read about it in the paper... You're such close, good friends, why didn't he want you to come forth? You're his only alibi, after all.”

“That's what I asked him. I think you're asking me to speculate on his reasons, and I don't think I'm allowed to do that, am I?” David asked, looking towards the judge.

Mick stood. “Objection. The witness called it. Speculation, your Honor.”

Sadowski shifted in his seat. “The witness will disregard the question.”

“Let me rephrase. Did Mr. McGee tell you why he hadn't contacted you to testify on his behalf?”

“He said he didn't want me involved in this.” 

“Mr. Banner, Mr. McGee refused to name you to the police, citing the state of Illinois Shield Law that pertains to journalists. Now, you've testified that you give him information on his investigations, that he was protecting your identity as an informant. Is there any reason that you know of that the police would be interested in your name?”

“Objection. The question is inflammatory and invokes privilege. The witness is protected by the fifth amendment from answering that question.” Mick had jumped up and he sounded heated.

Wilson said, “I'll rephrase, your Honor. Are there any warrants for your arrest under the name of David Banner?”

“No sir.”

“How many places have you lived during the last six years?”

“Objection. Irrelevant, your Honor,” Mick was quick to say.

“A.D.A. Wilson, where are you going with this line of questioning?” Sadowski asked, and Jack was sure he was annoyed, despite the mild tone of voice he'd used.

“I'm speaking to the credibility of the witness, your Honor. Mr. McGee went to a lot of trouble to keep his friend's name out of a police investigation, and I'm not buying that he did it to protect an informant. This man's character and identity needs to be put under a microscope for the defense to make a case against Mr. McGee.”

Sadowski waved for Mick to approach the bench. Mick grabbed the newspaper article Jack had slid out of the file folder and placed on the table. 

“Your Honor, the prosecution is badgering Mr. Banner with these questions implying that Mr. McGee bribed him to be his alibi, and trying to discredit his character. Since the prosecution has brought up Mr. Banner's character, I'd like to present this newspaper article. David Banner enlisted in the Army as a volunteer, and his hometown paper honored him for it. I think that should answer the question of whether he's a man of good character.” 

And, Jack thought, it establishes David under his own name without Mick having to slide it in there and maybe raise some suspicion about why it was even brought up.

The judge read the article, handed it to Wilson, who skimmed it and handed it back to him. He turned to David. “Mr. Banner, how long did you serve?”

“Three years. I was a medic.”

“Vietnam, I believe you and Mr. McGee said. How long were you in-country?”

“I did a twelve month tour, and then another six month one. 1965-67.”

“Where did you see combat?”

“Um... La Drang Valley, Dak To, and a lot of skirmishes.”

“I'm satisfied that the witness is creditable. A.D.A Wilson, drop that line of questioning.”

The judge handed David the article and David looked at it, and shook his head.

“What is it, Mr. Banner?” Sadowski asked.

“Oh, nothing really. My enlistment picture. I, I just look so young.”

“We all were, Mr. Banner. We all were.”

* * *

Closing arguments for both the prosecution and the defense had been made. The prosecution hadn't had any more questions for David after Sadowski had kicked out Wilson's line of questioning. Mick had whispered to David and Jack that the judge often took a fifteen to thirty minute recess before deciding if a case should proceed to trial. 

Instead, the judge ruled immediately.

Jack stood there, numb, not sure he'd heard the words right.

“Jack,” David said, his voice a low tone, and nudged him. “Jack. Are you okay? Take a deep breath or two. You're not going to trial. The judge ruled that there wasn't enough evidence for probable cause; he dismissed the case. Unless the cops come up with something more compelling in the way of evidence, you're in the clear.”

Mick stepped back to the table. “Let's go, the judge has got another hearing coming up. C'mon, I'll buy you both lunch. David, I've got questions.”

“I know. And I owe you for your help. Jack,” he nudged Jack again, “You okay?”

“Fletcher killed himself.” He made an effort to shake off the numbness. “I don't know if it will ever be ruled that way, but he gave up. He lost everything, his child, his wife, career, self-respect.”

David found his hand, held it. “I think so, too. It wasn't your fault, Jack. You didn't know what he was going to do.”

“I should have figured it out. He gave me those tapes. Don't people who want to kill themselves do that a lot, give away the things they hold dear, make sure that people who get them will care for them?”

“Yes. But it wasn't your fault, Jack. It really wasn't.” David's hand was on his arm now, and Jack looked at him. David knew all about taking blame when it wasn't deserved.

“I'll make you a deal, David Banner. I won't hold onto guilt over Fletcher's death if you promise to do the same thing about the car accident and Laura dying. Neither one of us was at fault, right?”

David startled, a look of confusion crossing his face. “What?”

“If it's true for me, it's true for you. Right?”

“Jack, it's different.” David was looking vulnerable again, and Jack put his arm around his shoulder. 

“I think you need somebody to keep telling you it wasn't your fault every time you start to feel guilty again. Consider yourself warned. Take the deal, David. You didn't do anything wrong, and neither did I.” Jack was so close to him, David's gray eyes were widening again.

“I, umm, I... okay. Deal. I know better than to get the country's most persistent reporter on my case again.”

Mick snorted. “Good. Now if you two will quit staring at each other, let's get lunch. I've got another case this afternoon. C'mon, start walking.” Mick gave both of them a small push.

Marta was waving at them and they headed toward her, Jack holding onto his Hulk file with his free hand. He didn't want to let go of David.

They stopped outside the courtroom, waiting for Mick to finish speaking with Marta before she went back to his office. 

He was talking to David, facing him where David was leaning against a wall with his traveling bag slung over a shoulder. He startled when he felt a hand touching his back. Turning around, he silently groaned. He thought she would have left the courthouse by now.

“Mr. McGee? My, that was so exciting, being in a courtroom as a witness. Are you going to write a story about it? You know my last name is spelled V-e-r-d-u-g-o. Verdugo. It's Catalan, you know. My family comes from nobility. The name means someone who lives by a meadow. I'm thinking of cross-stitching the coat of arms for my wall.” She looked up at him with her big blue eyes, elaborately styled dyed blonde hair and deep pink lipstick, which matched perfectly her fingernail polish. 

“Stella. How's tricks?” Jack moved so that her view of David was blocked. Behind him, David touched him on his back and with the corner of his eye he saw David sliding away in the opposite direction. He smoothly took Stella by her arm. 

“Let me walk you to the door, Miss Vedugo. I bet you've got a plane to catch soon back to Atlanta.” He walked her to the door, and she chattered about how a nice young man from the District Attorney's office had promised to take her on a drive through the Gold Coast.

“You want to see Lake Michigan?” he asked skeptically.

“Mr. McGee, don't be so silly. I want to see the shops. Oh, and the mansions that belong to the wealthy here in Chicago. I know they won't compare to what we have in Atlanta, but since I'm here, I thought I'd take a little look-see at them.”

They were at the doors now, and Jack opened one for Stella. “Goodbye, Stella. Take care of yourself.”

“Why thank you, Mr. McGee. You know, you were always my favorite reporter from the National Register. You know, I haven't read any more stories by you about the Hulk for a long time now. I believe its been well over a year.”

“Uh-huh. Well, enjoy your tour of the Gold Coast.” She wasn't walking through the door, though. Instead a puzzled look crossed her face.

“Mr. McGee, who was that man you were talking to? I think I've seen him somewhere before.”

“He was just asking directions. I don't know his name,” Jack lied. 

“You know, I'm just sure I've seen him before. But I don't think he was dressed so nicely. Good lord a mercy, it'll come to me. I'm really good with faces. Especially good-looking men like that gentleman.” She gave a little girlish giggle. “Well, goodbye, Mr. McGee.” She gave him another one of her trademark waves and walked out the door.

Jack felt himself slumping. He fervently hoped that she would get distracted by sightseeing and forget she ever saw David Banner's face again.

He went to find him and Mick. He wasn't looking forward to seeing David's expression of feeling trapped. He had no trouble remembering it from closing in on David in that room full of costumes on Diane Powell's island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Papelito habla"  
> "Little paper speaks"  
> Meaning, that you must have proof of what you claim. (a legal document)
> 
> From Wikipedia


	6. Chapter 6

“Upon the continent of my soul, I shall find the forgotten language.”  
 _Look Homeward, Angel_

* * *

David looked around Jack's apartment with interest, taking in Jack's desk, the masks on the wall over his bed, his small kitchen along one wall and the sliding glass doors that lead to his small balcony. Jack held out his hand for David's bag, and once again he could see uncertainty in David's eyes.

“Is it staying here with me, or staying at my apartment?” David shrugged, and handed his bag to Jack who put it on the floor next to his dresser.

David said, “If the police check my name, they could come to your home. That A.D.A., Wilson? He might ask for my name to be looked into. He didn't like losing.”

Jack walked over to him and touched him on the arm. “We can go to a motel room, if you want. But I've got a police scanner here.” 

He walked over to his kitchen corner and reached up to the top of the refrigerator, clicked it on, set the volume just loud enough so that he'd notice if his street or address was mentioned.

Jack kicked off his shoes by his dresser and looked at David. His friend was showing him a lot of trust, coming home with Jack like this. The small touches they'd indulged in after court and during lunch were a kind of foreplay that they both acknowledged. David had come home with him; Jack wanted him to relax. 

“David, I don't think the cops are going to be too interested in checking you out. If they do, it'll probably be just for Chicago or the state of Illinois or they'll check with NCIS. You weren't listed as a missing person or wanted for any sort of criminal charges, because the hospital you were in when you had amnesia sent your fingerprints to them. They drew a blank.”

“That's true. I'd forgotten about that.”

“If the cops think to check your name with your Army records and cross check with the Social Security Death Index, you'll come up as deceased.”

“The F.B.I checked there and got my name, but the agents let me go and got rid of the file that was sent.”

“You haven't done anything to bring the cops down on you, so you're probably as safe as you ever are. I don't think the CPD is going to take Stella too seriously if she remembers where she saw you.” He shrugged off his suit coat, put it over the back of a chair.

“I guess we're okay.” David smiled, but he still looked uptight. Really, he'd been that way ever since Stella had glanced at his face. Mick was a great guy, but he was a lawyer. Asking questions was what he did. It hadn't exactly been a relaxing lunch. Still, now David had an attorney he could call if he was tossed in the clink. 

Speaking of which... “Hey, we can compare jailhouse stories now. I was in for four days.”

David's eyes crinkled when he smiled this time. “I've got you beat. I worked on a road gang for weeks when I was in the prison camp, remember?” 

“I was in the Cook County Jail. Cook. County. Jail. That should trump taking a stroll down the highway with a shovel, and getting all that fresh air.” Jack loosened his tie, pulled it off his neck, and tossed it toward a chair. He missed and it landed on the floor. He didn't care. He started unbuttoning his shirt. 

“Hot, hot sun, Jack. And since the guys thought I was a snitch, one of them cut my leg pretty badly with a shovel And..” He made his voice sound like a TV announcer's patter. “ _I_ got bit by a snake when I got dragged along on an escape attempt.” David watched him take off his shirt, leaving Jack in just a sleeveless undershirt. 

“I had to eat cabbage soup and baloney sandwiches.” Jack made a face, remembering the taste.

“I got thrown a blanket party.” 

Jack walked over to the door and locked it, and put on the chains. He walked back over to David, and raised his eyebrows.

“I could kiss where they whaled on you and make it better,” he suggested, and unbuttoned David's top button, and then stopped, waiting for David's permission before he made another move.

Still using that ridiculous voice, David added, “I also got framed for murdering somebody I never even met, just because I was hitchhiking down the road and the cops scooped me up. They said they were just going to give me a ride...” He slid Jack's hand down to his next button. Jack undid it and then the next two, tugging David's shirt free. David wasn't wearing a T-shirt underneath his button down, and Jack traced a line down David's smooth chest, his fingers briefly touching the gold chain and medal David wore. 

“But they really gave you a ride. You and the murdered man's wife. I remember you telling me about that. Tell you what, you win. What do you want for your prize?”

“Strawberries.” David took the hem of Jack's T-shirt and pulled it off, then placed both of his hands over Jack's nipples. Jack shivered, and not from the cool air in the room.

“Strawberries. Well, okay, fine, we can go to the grocery later.” Jack put his hands on David's hips and drew him close. David slid his arms up until they were around Jack's neck.

“Not real strawberries. This kind of strawberries.” He drew Jack's mouth down to his and kissed him. It was a little clumsy and sweet and Jack loved it. 

They kissed for a few minutes, and Jack put his hand in David's hair, feeling the weight of it, the softness, the way the longer hair at the back of David's neck would curl around his finger. He became more demanding with the kiss, moving them a little towards the bed. 

“Jack. Wait.” He stopped moving, but he kept his hands on David's waist. 

“Whatever you need, David. We can take it slower.” 

He wondered if David was having second thoughts. David had battened the hatches down on his occasional attraction to a man till just a few years ago. If he hadn't had amnesia and been given the freedom to just act on his desires, maybe he never would have kissed another man or let them stroke him or fuck him. Maybe he wanted to be in the driver's seat. That was okay with Jack. He hadn't done it that often either, but they could stumble along together. 

“No, that's not it. I know what I want. I've wanted you for months. Maybe years. I just thought... You should know that...” He huffed in frustration.

“Hey. Come here.” He drew David into a tight hug, his hands under David's shirt, a warm gathering of his body into Jack's arms. He stayed quiet, just letting David soak up his care.

And he did care about him. He'd liked him when he was just John Doe, brave lost soul. He'd admired David Banner, the scientist, the man who'd run into a burning building to save a friend. He'd watched David's inner frustrations take form as a huge giant green man, one who always seemed to do the right thing, even if he was hell on property values. Sure the Hulk was scary. So was a hurricane. The difference was that the Hulk wouldn't hurt any innocents, and he only used enough force to put down the fools stupid enough to hurt David or somebody under David's protection.

He felt David relaxing in his arms. “Better now?”

David mumbled against his shoulder, “I've given lectures to colleagues and at universities. I don't know why telling you this is so hard.”

Jack said, “You can tell me anything. But maybe I should tell you some things first.”  
He cleared his throat. This wasn't that easy for him to say either. 

“You don't have-” 

“No,” Jack insisted. “I need to say this.”

“All right. I'm listening.”

“Okay. I'm sorry, David. I'm sorry for making your life hell. I had my reasons and we've talked about them a lot, but I'm sorry. I know now that there just isn't any simple answers, no perfect solution. What I wanted, want, for you is for you to be safe. Nobody shooting at you because you look like a monster. Not going hungry or having no place to rest, no injuries or sickness that you can't afford the medicine for or to see a doctor about. Nobody trying to rape you or beat you up.”

“Oh Jack, you shouldn't worry about me.” David looked up at him, and his eyes were soft with compassion.

Jack shrugged.“Can't help it. Dell Frye was killed when he was his hulk. I worry about you dying. That girl, Annie, the one that said she was psychic, she told me that in one of your futures the Hulk is killed. I don't want that future to be your real one.”

He tightened his arms around David, feeling his spine, his ribs. His soft and vulnerable skin.

“You don't get to be safe though. I understand that now. Anything you decide has its drawbacks. You can keep running and try to figure out a cure on your own or with help from those you trust, or you can turn yourself in and see if the government would help you and not just cage you.”

“I'm going with option one.” David gave him a rueful look.

“The choice is yours; I won't ever try to make it for you again. But I'll help you however I can. And thank you for today. Mick told me he thought if you hadn't testified that the case would have gone to trial. You're always saving people. I love that about you.” 

David took a deep breath and straightened up, took a step back. “I, Jack, it's okay. We're okay. I don't even mind that you made me into a science fiction character.” He grinned at Jack, and Jack felt like his heart had done a flip in his chest. He was too old for this love-struck nonsense. But it seemed like it was too late. The attraction he'd had for David had smoldered for years and now it was as strong as those wildfires that had threatened once to engulf him. 

David touched Jack's cheek, ran a finger down the side of his jaw. “I want to go to bed with you. But, I'm falling for you, and that's not fair. To you. I don't want you to think you owe me, or that you have any obligations to me because of the way I am.” 

David's mouth was so very beautiful, Jack thought. And he wasn't making any sense with it at all.

“What way are you?” He slid David's shirt off him, unbuckled his belt, thumbed open the button of his khakis, pulled his zipper down. David took in a sharp breath.

“I'm. I'm, God, I hate this about myself. I'm needy sometimes.”

“What'da ya mean?” Jack let his hand slide up and down David's back.

David said slowly, “Someone is kind to me, treats me like I'm a good person, sees me not just a drifter, a failure, and I'm so grateful. I latch onto them. I make myself a part of their life and then I have to leave and it makes it ten times worse, for me, for them.” 

Jack made a sympathetic sound. 

David continued in a rush. “I try not do it the next time, to be more reserved, hold myself back but then I do bad John Wayne imitations to cheer up a sad little boy, or I get close to a woman, or one of the sweetest guys I've ever met invites me to move in with him at some sort of biker-hippie farm and it all falls apart. Every time, it falls apart. I feel like a hit and run driver, and boy I know how it feels to be hit like that.”

Jack looked into David's eyes, and he was far away somewhere.

“David?” He waited until David's eyes were focused on his again. “Why do you think you're hurting those people by sharing what you can with them?”

He waited for David to answer, but instead he saw tears pooling in his eyes.

“David, I've talked to some of them, the ones who felt something for you. Yeah, they miss you. They wish you were still in their lives, but you made them feel better while you were with them. You're easy to love, that's not something that's bad.” 

He took David's head between his hands and gently kissed him, then put his hands on his shoulders. “You're the one who gets hurt, I see that. You leave your new friends, the kids you've grown to love, the lover or potential lover, and you're the one who's alone. They've got their other friends, their parents. You don't have anyone. But you've got me. You'll always have me. I know all about you; there's no secret to protect from me.”

He kissed David again, needy, hungry, wanting to make David forget about his crappy life, make him live in the moment, right here, right now, and let him feel happy. 

David's lips were warm, pliant, and he made a soft sound of disappointment when Jack gently ended the kiss.

“Come to bed. Tell me what you like,” Jack said softly.

He wanted to get David under the covers -- it was September in Chicago and the heat wasn't on yet in his apartment – but not just to keep him physically warm. He flashed on what David had mentioned over the years, about sleeping on benches, in phone booths, on the ground, leaning against buildings. He wanted to take care of David, make him comfortable. He'd had such a rough time. 

David smiled at him and Jack thought, _”Yeah. You're easy to love.”_

David said, “I like your hands on me. Okay?” Jack put both of his hands on David's bare biceps and gently walked him backwards until his legs touched the bed.

David was still smiling, but he also looked sort of exhausted now that he was relaxing. He'd jumped on a plane to come here and Jack bet that he hadn't slept at all, then or before he'd left California. David had told him during one of their phone calls that he wasn't much fond of flying anymore. Too many mishaps during flights. 

“You're tired. Bet you've got jet lag.” He put a hand on David's shoulder and gently pushed him down. David sprawled backwards on the bed, elbows supporting him.

Jack crouched down and touched the medal lying against David's chest. “So you did wear it. I wondered.”

“I didn't at first. Not until I believed you about not giving me up.”

Jack said, “But you kept it.”

“I thought about mailing it to you, but I, well, I just didn't.”

“My ma gave it to me before I went to Korea.” 

David said, “I saw it around your neck when we were on the mountain. I figured it was pretty special to you. You never struck me as the type to wear a lot of jewelry.”

“No, I'm not. I wore it because of Ma. She believed St. Christopher would protect me.”

“Why did you give it to me?” David asked, looking up into Jack's eyes.

“To keep you safe? I don't know. I'm not a believer, but it felt like the right thing to do.”

“Thank you. But you should have it back now. Your mother would want you to keep it.”  
David sat up and started to pull the medal over his head, but Jack caught his hand. David let the medal drop back against his skin.

Jack shook his head. “Ma would be proud of me for giving it to you. She used to tell me, 'John Patrick McGee, God loves a cheerful giver.' She and my father would have loved you, David. I want you to have it, okay?”

David bit his lip. “You're sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure. Wear it and stay safe, all right?” Then Jack knelt down and grabbed David's right cowboy boot. He pulled it off, and then he took off the left one. Slipped off David's socks. David wiggled his toes and Jack chuckled.

“Cowboy boots, eh? Guess you're still a Colorado farm boy at heart.” 

David laughed. “I guess I am.” He stood up, making Jack, still on his knees, scoot back a little. He pushed off his khakis and boxers, wadded them up and tossed them across the room. They barely landed on a chair, but Jack only noticed that out of the corner of his eye because David was naked. Jack put his hands on David's ass, and drew him so close that his belly was against Jack's face. “So you like strawberries. I'll give you as many as you want.”

He felt the strong muscles in David's ass, kneaded them a little, and licked the soft skin around David's belly button. Starting a trail of tiny kisses downward, he was rewarded by David's gasps and the feel of his penis, already half hard, thickening as Jack dragged his tongue down its length. 

“Do you like that, my mouth on you like that? Do you want me to take you in my mouth?”  
He had a sudden desire to hear David ask for it, to make him say the words out loud. Would he blush? During their time on the mountain, the awkward sex they'd had then, David had been shy at first. It had been so sweet to make him pant and babble as Jack drove him wild. Jack really wanted that again.

David didn't answer him, just let his hands cup Jack's head, his fingers exploring Jack's hair. Jack licked him again, and put his mouth over the head of David's penis and sucked him gently.

David started breathing hard. His hips jerked forward and Jack let David's dick slip free. “I can't hear you. What do you want me to do with my mouth?”

“You're a terrible tease, Jack McGee.” David said, laughing a little, his breath coming harder as Jack sucked him back into his mouth. 

Jack decided if he was such a terrible tease then he'd better live up to his reputation, and really went to work on making David lose it. 

He'd gotten wonderful, beautiful, begging sounds from David, and then he stopped. He stood up, and David's mouth was making a perfect “O.” He had to kiss him. 

He did, and then stripped off the rest of his own clothes fast. He pulled David to him and whispered, “You didn't answer my question. I'm a writer, words are my life. I want to hear your words, Davy.”

He hadn't meant to say that, to call David that nickname. It had been his wife's name for him, his mother's. Jack wasn't family.

“I want whatever you want to give me, Jack.”

“More words.”

“Umm, so... I want, I want your mouth around my dick. Please? It feels like heaven.” The blush that Jack had hoped for was growing on David's cheeks. “And nobody's called me Davy like that for a long time.” David kissed Jack's neck, and the heavy, coiling feel of arousal in Jack's belly intensified. 

“It's okay, then? If I do it? Be honest, all right?” Jack took a step back so he could see David's eyes. He'd know if he lied to him, out of kindness. 

“I like it.” David's eyes were as honest as his John Doe's eyes had been on that mountain. Then a mischievous look crossed his face. “I'll call you Jackie. Jackie O.”

Jack smacked him on the butt. “Ohhh, I don't think so. You. Bed. Now.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” David snapped off, and Jack pulled back the covers.

* * * 

Jack rolled over, expecting to find David's warm body, but he only felt cool sheets. He panicked, and sat up in a hurry. He felt his heart rate slow down when he saw David sitting quietly on the floor, cross-legged, his eyes shut and his hands turned up on his knees, middle fingers touching his thumbs.

Jack had seen Molly's yoga students doing similar things, and he laid back down, turning on his side so he could stare at David. What he was doing was some sort of meditation.

He looked comfortable enough, dressed again in boxers and a T-shirt, although his hair was wildly tangled in contrast with the serene expression on his face. Jack smiled smugly; he was responsible for the state of David's hair. The room was really too chilly for what his lover – another thing he felt smug about this morning, being able to call David Banner his lover – was doing, but David had told him some time ago about learning to meditate as a way of controlling his body. He could do it for hours and was trying to train himself to not be bothered by the environment around him. Noise, heat, coldness, pain couldn't penetrate his inner peace, if he was sunk deep into himself.

It was the middle of the morning, fairly late for Jack to be just waking up, but about right for early morning for David. Yesterday afternoon and evening he and David had spent tearing up the sheets. Well, and talking. Taking turns reading to each other. Ordering Chinese and eating it in bed. Being silly, too. 

David Banner, brilliant scientist, compassionate doctor, author of groundbreaking research papers, was a real goof when he was relaxed and happy. At one point David had even landed on the floor in a heap of blankets from being a little too enthusiastic about rolling around on the bed. Jack had laughed till he was almost crying at the surprised look on David's face as he looked up at him from the floor. 

Jack grinned again, remembering David's atrocious French accent when Jack had demanded more words from him as he was giving him head. David had started a kind of scientific babbling about lovemaking, naming the research Kinsey and Masters and Johnson had done and throwing out terms like _plateau_ and _resolution_ > and _sex binding hormones_

When David was reduced to nonsensical syllables, Jack gave him the mercy stroke. When he'd come, David had gripped Jack's arm so hard that he'd probably left a bruise, but Jack hadn't cared. 

And then it had been Jack's turn, and he thanked God for his Davy's medical know-how, because he'd fingered Jack, absolutely nailing his prostrate, and driving him wild with the sensations while he also used oil on Jack's dick, his slick hand teasing him in time to the small thrusts he made inside of Jack. 

It was so intense, so intimate, and Jack hadn't had anybody's hands on him for so very long. He'd almost passed out when he came. They'd both slept for a while, and Jack woke up to David lazily tracing triangle patterns on Jack's shoulder. Greek symbols for the elements, David told him. And the last one was for balance. He looked a little shy about saying that. Jack, who amazingly, still had a few brain cells in working order, figured that maybe David was saying there was now balance between them. 

He kept that to himself for the moment. He just kissed David and told him he was the cutest nerd he knew. 

David had bopped him with a pillow. Jack wasn't sure if that was for calling him cute or a nerd. They'd had a mock wrestling match, then, which had led to a lot of laughing and touching and more sweet times under the blankets.

Jack watched David meditating for a few more minutes before closing his eyes and feeling himself relaxing back into sleep again. In the weeks before the preliminary hearing he hadn't been sleeping well at all, and catching up sounded wonderful. He didn't have anything he had to do today, except write his letter of resignation and hand it over to Mark. Mark had been a good boss to him; he hadn't wanted to run the story on Jack being charged with murder, but he'd been overruled by Steinhauer. Jack owed him a personal resignation, not just a letter dropped in the mail.

Yeah, sounded like a plan. Sleep, shower, eat, write his letter, and if David was done with his Zen stuff, maybe he'd like to go out later with him to celebrate Jack's freedom from tabloid hell.

* * *

Jack had been quiet as he'd showered and gotten dressed. He'd eaten a bowl of cereal, pleased that the milk wasn't spoiled yet, and sipped coffee as he typed up his resignation letter. David was still off in a trance, and Jack was tempted to wave a cup of coffee in front of him, just to see if David's nose would twitch.

He wasn't concerned that things would be awkward between David and him this morning. It wasn't as if he'd picked David up at a bar and didn't know much about him now except for sexual positions he preferred. He and David were friends. Friends with a strange, strange history, but when they didn't know who the other one was, when David had been a homeless amnesiac, they'd just liked each other. They clicked then and they would now, too.

David could have left before Jack woke up, if he was having second thoughts about the two of them, but he hadn't. 

Jack knew he wanted to keep seeing David. 

Would David want the same thing?

* * *

David opened his eyes, laced his fingers together, palms up and stretched his arms over his head. 

“Good morning. I've got some Sugar Smacks and milk, or you know, I think the bread isn't moldy, if you wanted a peanut butter sandwich. Or we could go out to eat,” Jack said, a stupid smile breaking out on his face.

David got to his feet gracefully and stretched again, arms wide, and then waggled his finger at Jack. “Sugar Smacks are pure sugar.”

“I know. They're great.”

“Jack, does the word, 'nutrition' mean anything to you?”

“I've used it in a crossword puzzle before.” 

David shook his head sadly, but the smile in his eyes and the way his lips kept trying to turn up gave him away.

“You're a funny guy, Jack. I'll stick with peanut butter.” He walked over to the counter and took out two slices of bread. 

“Coffee's on the stove. I'll heat it back up for you. Peanut butter's in the cupboard over the sink.”

“Mmm. Thanks. “ He got down the jar and Jack turned on the stove under the percolator, got a knife out of the drawer and handed it to David. 

“So, David, this is my own personal Liberation Day. I'm throwing off my chains, claiming my freedom, storming the Bastille.”

“You're what?”

“I'm quitting the National Register. I've just got to go see my editor, Mark Roberts, and give him my resignation letter. Mark's a good guy; he's looked out for me, and I want to tell him in person. I've got the letter all ready to go.”

He added, in a pretentious tone, “Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to a celebration of my freedom at a fine restaurant later?”

David's eyebrows scrunched downwards. “Why are you quitting? You've stuck with it for a long time, why now?” He finished making his sandwich and took a bite, chewing slowly as he watched Jack. 

Jack shrugged. “I haven't ever liked writing for a tabloid; it was just a way to make the rent until I could do better. You know that, right? I wanted to write the Hulk story, and your story, when I realized that a man was actually the Hulk, partly so that I could get some credit with other papers and go back to writing important stories again. I'm sick to death of astrology, and flying saucers, and movie stars' hair styles and what their dogs' favorite brand of dog food might be.”

The coffee started percolating and Jack got out a mug, saw the chip on the edge, and put it back, picked out another one that was in better shape. He poured David a cup and put it on the counter, then grabbed his own mug from the desk and poured himself a cup, too. 

David sipped his coffee. He was watching Jack, curiosity in his expression.

“Also, I'm this close to turning green and growing my own set of bushy eyebrows, I'm so mad at the paper for the stories they ran on me and Fletcher.”

“I don't blame you one bit,” David said.

“After the years I've worked for the rag, you'd think I'd have earned a little consideration. So, this is it. I've finally had it. I'm jumping ship.”

“You're a good writer, Jack. I bet you'll get snapped up by another paper.”

“I'm not going to apply anywhere. Not here in the Windy City or anywhere else. I'm going to write books and freelance on stories I want to do. I've been – well, you can see for yourself that I'm not spending money on this place – I've been socking away some bucks. I've got enough to get by, until I sell another book or two.” He finished his coffee as David watched him, his sandwich forgotten on the counter.

“Jack, do you want to stay in Chicago? You've got friends here, contacts, a life.”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“I know we've only slept together a couple of times, but I don't want to go back to just talking to you on the phone. Well, I will, obviously, if you don't want me around, but I'd like to at least be in the same city as you,” Jack said.

“With me?”

“I could get my own place, or, if things move in the right direction, maybe we could give living together a shot. I'm no prize, but I'd try my best to make you happy. So, I'd go with you. If you'll have me.” Jack felt a little shaky, asking for a future with David like that. But faint heart, blah, blah, blah.

David looked very serious. “Do you want people to know we're together, if we live together, or even if we just date?”

“I would, but I'd go with what feels comfortable to you.”

“These are pretty big decisions, Jack. Maybe you should take some time, really consider what you want to do.”

“About quitting, nah. I was just waiting to see if I had to go to trial. I thought it would be better if I was employed, for my image. David, my books are selling pretty well. And I liked writing them. I want to do more fiction writing, under my alias, of course. And maybe some non-fiction stuff.”

He moved to David, put his arms around him. “You, I've wanted you for a long time, too. And it isn't out of a sense of guilt over what I put you through. That's something separate. But you, my John Doe, I want you in my life. God, I sound like a crappy soap opera character, but I do. But it isn't really about what I want. It's about what you want.”

“What I want.” David sounded dubious.

“And I think I should give you some time to think about it, if you want a guy like me in your life, sleeping in your bed, probably giving you grief. I'm. Okay, I wasn't going to tell you this yet, but what the hell. I'll lay out my cards. I'm in love with you, Davy.”

Jack kissed him, and they just kissed for a long time, standing in his cramped apartment. 

David said, “Jack--”

“Don't say anything right now, okay? I sprung this on you and you should take some time, figure out what you want. If you shoot me down, I'll be fine with just being your friend, whether we sleep together again or not. Just, don't think something stupid, like you shouldn't drag me into your problems. I want to be there with you. For you. Remember that, okay. We'll talk about it later.”

“All right.” David was looking at him the way the Hulk did. With trust. And with a little confusion.

“Hey, I was serious about going out to celebrate. Want to?” Jack asked.  
David tilted his head a little and looked at Jack, quiet, obviously thinking about what Jack had just spilled his guts about. Finally, he nodded. “Celebrating with you sounds great. Also, I thought I'd do some research while I was in town. There's a group at the University of Chicago's Biological Sciences Division doing some interesting things with gene mapping. They've come up with a fairly rapid method for localizing an unmapped dominant or recessive mutation to a specific chromosome. I'd like to talk to some of them; my latest fake ID should work to get me in the door.”

“Okay. I'll drop you off there and go talk to Mark. I'll pick you back up around... seven? Sound good to you?”

David put his hands in his back pockets. “How dressed up do I need to be? I don't have a suit.”

“A nice shirt and a tie will be fine. Jeans are okay, too. It's not going to be that fancy, just mostly great food. Hey, help yourself to anything of mine. Most of my shirts might be kinda big on you, but I've got some smaller ones. I'll dig them out. Me casa is your casa, and all.”

David smiled at him and finished his coffee, disappeared into the bathroom. 

Jack phoned Mark's secretary and had her pencil him in for early this afternoon. He'd miss Mark, and the few other friends that he had here in Chicago, but he'd go with David anywhere in the world, if David asked him.

* * *

They'd ordered appetizers at Allemand's, a Creole restaurant that Mark had recommended to Jack. David was telling him how his afternoon at the University had gone, his expression animated as he explained how the work being done in Chicago could help him speed up his own research. 

“You know, you're cute when you're deep into science thinking. Also, that shirt makes your eyes look more blue than gray.”

David stopped whatever he was going to say and swallowed. “Are you going to make a habit out of saying things like that?” 

“Yep.”

He said, resigned, “It's because my face turns red, isn't it? You just want to tease me.”

“Nope.”

“Carolyn was the last person who talked to me that way. You'd better watch out, Jack McGee. I married her.”

“She sounds like a woman of good taste and good judgment.” 

“Oh, she was. I showed up on her doorstep and she let me stay.” 

“Were you happy together before she died?” David had talked about his second wife a few times to Jack. They hadn't had very long together before her illness overcame her. Jack had met her briefly. She'd been a tall, beautiful blonde and like David, a genius in her field. Like most of the friends David had made, she wouldn't talk to Jack. 

“Yes, we were happy. Life with her was like having strawberries every day.”

“Strawberries again?”

“It's, well, I told Carolyn a story I'd read once, about a man who fell over a cliff, barely able to hold onto some roots, which were coming free from the cliff. There were tigers above him, and tigers below him. His situation was hopeless. But growing out of the cliff were wild strawberries and he risked letting go with one hand to pluck them and they were the sweetest things he'd ever tasted. And he said to himself that wasn't he a lucky man, to have such wonderful strawberries to eat.”

Jack smiled at him. “Ah, so now you'll take what joy you can, no matter that you're in a bad fix.” 

“Yes. I don't know what my future holds anymore. Once upon a time, in another life, I did. I thought I'd be a husband and a father and my work would benefit people, help them to be healthier, live better lives.”

“David, I'm sorry.”

“I thought I had time to experience all the sweet things in life, and I could wait for them. Someday take my wife on a long trip and see the wonders of the world. Have children. Laura and I were going to wait another year before trying to have a baby.”

“Yesterday, you said you wanted... So I rate being a strawberry? And being with me is you taking back what you can out of the lousy hand you were dealt?” Jack took a sip of water.

“That's it. And maybe... Jack, remember when we were trapped between the wolves and the wild-fire and—”

“Yeah, vividly. In fact, I remember dangling over a cliff, with wolves below me and my friend trying his damndest to pull me up. Good thing he had some extra muscle he was packing. Saved my life, again.” Jack grinned at him, marveling a little how he could now joke about the Hulk, when he'd had nightmares about him for years.

David said intently, “And didn't the time we spent together at night, huddled together, proving to each other that we were still alive by giving each other pleasure, didn't that make it something wondrous and special?”

“You didn't hear me complaining, did you?”

“That's choosing strawberries. And I'm going to keep right on doing it. Come with me to California, Jack.”

“You're serious?”

David nodded. “I've got a small apartment, just a one bedroom, really, but you don't have a lot of things, and I've learned not to accumulate belongings. We'll pack up your books, and whatever clothes you want to bring, and your typewriter.”

“You think it's safe for you to go back to your job?”

“I called a colleague this afternoon, to just check in. Everything seems normal, the police haven't been there asking for me, or for David Banner.”

“How do you know your buddy would know to tell you that?”

“He's the biggest gossip in the place. He'd have told me.”

“You know, I could kiss you right now, Davy. And I'm coming along. For as long as you want me there, okay?”

“I do. When do you want to leave?”

“Do you need to go talk with more scientists?”

“I could use another day.”

“And I could use a day to pack and sort things, talk to my landlady, go to the bank. Let's plan on leaving the day after tomorrow.”

David's whole face lit up, and Jack felt his own face almost hurting, he was grinning so hard.

David said, “What's that the hippies say? From that Grateful Dead song?”

“You hang out with hippies, David?”

“I have. Good people, at least the ones I've met. They'll usually pick me up when I'm hitchhiking. I've traveled with migrant workers, too. Picked onions, beans, grapes, lettuce. Been a gardener. Worked construction, lots of jobs where my back was more important than my brain.”

“People told me that you were a hard worker.” 

“My dad taught me it was important to do a good job on whatever you turned your hand to, and I was a farm kid. We learn early to do chores, to work hard.”

“I'm glad I got to meet him. You know, you inherited his hair.”

David nodded. “Yeah. Someday I'll startle myself when I look in the mirror and see Dad's bush of gray hair. And I'm glad you got to meet him and Helen and the baby. What about your family? I know your dad passed away. And your mother?”

“Ma too. And my two uncles. It's just me now, the last of the St. Louis McGees.”

David smiled understandingly at him, and even though those deaths were long past for him, he felt comforted.

David took a sip of water, and held the glass in his hand, staring at it. Then he clicked his tongue. “That song, what was it... Oh, I got it. _What a Long Strange Trip It's Been_.

“Yeah. And we're not done yet. Not until you've figured out how to keep the Hulk from popping back out. Not that he's a bad guy, you know.”

“You sound almost like you're fond of him.”

“He's you. Of course I'm fond of him. Well, I am _now_. He's saved my life, and more than once. But I had nightmares about him for a long time, until I realized he was more bark than bite, and that he was pulling his punches when it came to dealing with puny humans. Rough on buildings, though. And he doesn't do well with machinery or electronics. He, you, don't seem to understand it, and you just start smashing. God, wouldn't you like to know what's going on in the Hulk's brain when you're him?”

“Oh, yes. But I'd like it even more if he never showed up again.”

“Stella was right about him, though. He is beautiful to watch.”

David rolled his eyes. 

“So are you.”

Jack was rewarded by seeing David's cheeks flush with color again, but they were both distracted when the server brought their oysters en brochette to the table. They smelled heavenly. 

David lifted his wine glass. “Umm, to your new-found freedom. May you never have to write about astrology conventions or visions of Jesus on a moldy wall ever again.”

Jack picked up his own glass. “And to strawberries.”

* * *

“Let's take a walk down to Navy Pier. There shouldn't be many tourists there this time of night and we can take a look at the city lights,” Jack said, then forked his last bite of the peach cobbler he and David were sharing into his mouth.

“Okay.” David looked mellow, and they'd talked about everything – places to see on the trip to California, David's job, Jack's talk with Mark this afternoon -- in between exchanging bites of each others' food, David's blackened salmon with dirty rice, Jack's gumbo and jambalaya. 

They finished the bottle of wine and Jack paid, leaving a bigger than usual tip for their server. He felt good tonight and didn't mind spreading the cheer around. They walked to his car and retrieved a heavier spare jacket for David. The one he'd brought for himself was warm enough to keep the wind off Lake Michigan from chilling him.

It felt easy and natural to walk with David the mile and a half to the Pier, and before they had reached the gigantic ferris wheel, their hands had tangled together. Jack noticed one couple looking at them, and the man had wrinkled up his face in disgust as they passed each other. 

David noticed, too. His hand in Jack's tightened and a wary look crossed his face.

“It bothers you, to see people looking at you, at us, like that guy just did.” Jack thought they might as well hash out just how out David wanted to be. 

“Not that he disapproves. I don't care what he or anybody else thinks. I used to, but it doesn't seem important any longer. Life's short, people should do what makes them feel happy.”

“David, you were leery just then. Look, we can be as out as you want. If that means we hold hands in public, okay. If it means we only do things like that at home, that's all right with me.”

“Mmm. No, well, yes, I was on guard. But not because he didn't like to see two men holding hands. I was watching him to see if he was going to try to attack us. Jack, I have to be, well, vigilant. I'll change if I'm attacked and I can't control the pain. Frankly, if I can run from a fight, I'll do it. Unless somebody else is being hurt, or I'm trapped.” David stopped walking and tugged Jack so he faced him.

David said, “I don't want to hide what I feel about you. But I can't afford to be in fights, either. But this is a public place, well-lit, and I don't want to stop holding hands. He's moved on, anyway.” 

“Okay. We'll just take it one step at a time. Keep our eyes peeled for troublemakers.” He tugged at David's hand and they headed further down the pier. It was a beautiful night, not too cold, or windy, and the lights of the city looked surreal from the pier.  
David pointed at one of the tourist trap joints, a place where you could have your picture taken on the pier. “I did that kind of job for a while. I was pretty good at the photography, but terrible with the sales part. I had a hard time pressuring people to buy the photos.”

“Did you smile at them? Because I bet you sold some with just that smile of yours.” 

David rolled his eyes again, but he seemed more relaxed. Good. 

David brought Jack's hand up and kissed it. “C'mon, you sweet-talker. Let's walk all the way to the end of the pier, and enjoy the view.”

* * *

The next day was a busy one for Jack. He closed out his bank account, packed, sorted clothes, sold his bed and dressers and desk to other tenants. He gave his TV and the food in his cupboards and in the refrigerator to the family two doors down. He made arrangements to drop off the key with his landlady the next morning, and in the evening went to pick David up from the IIT Research Institute. David had met with a scientist studying “the mechanism of radiation effects on DNA synthesis” there and was buzzing with ideas that Jack couldn't begin to understand, but he liked hearing David talk about them anyway. 

They stopped at a place in Jack's neighborhood and ate a deep dish pizza before returning to the apartment for their last night in Chicago, a couple of slices left for a quick morning meal before they loaded up Jack's car and headed west. 

Jack had bought a copy of the National Register before leaving Uncle Gitano's Pizza. He sat down on the bed, the last of the furniture in his apartment, and unfolded the paper. David kicked off his shoes, climbed on the bed beside him, and stretched out, using pillows as a backrest. 

“Can I have the crossword puzzle, please?” he asked, and took a pen out of his shirt pocket.

Jack handed him the entertainment page. “Knock yourself out.” He continued to search through the paper, scanning each page slowly, as David began filling in the puzzle. 

“Ah, finally.” He folded the paper and handed it to David. “In the finest of tabloid fashion, the Register has reluctantly done a followup story on my prelim. Since the case was dropped, I get two lines about it on the very last page.”

“They don't mention my name, do they?”

“No. Steinhauer didn't even want to run that the case was dropped, but Mark insisted. Of course, nobody will remember that. They'll remember the front page spreads of the feud Fletcher and I supposedly had with each other.”

“Going to take the paper with us tomorrow, as a souvenir?”

Jack shuddered. “Hell, no.” He stood and tossed the paper in the trash can and started undressing. 

“What month was Luke and Laura's wedding?”

“Do you really care?”

“Do you really know?”

“Unfortunately, yes. My head is stuffed with ridiculous things like that from working at the Register.”

David moved off the bed, dropping his section in the trash, too. He pulled Jack's belt free and kissed him. “I think I can find something better to do than fill in the blanks on General Hospital trivia.”

* * *

Jack woke up and stretched in bed. He felt great. David had given him a blow job last night, and despite it being David's first time and sometimes awkward as he figured out the mechanics, it had been wonderful. 

David was still asleep, curled on his side. Jack debated getting up and taking a shower, then lugging boxes down to his car, but instead decided to see if he could get David hot and bothered without waking him up. David was naked so that made it easy.

He touched him slowly, just wanting to arouse him, and David started squirming. His eyes opened and closed a few times before he focused hazily on Jack. 

“Mmm. Did I say you could wake me like this?” He sounded a little stern, a little disapproving, but the upward curve of his lips told another story.

“Yes, you did. Last night, remember? I took notes. But I can stop if you don't want me to continue...” He let his hand drop away, but David grabbed it and placed it back. David's body felt warm, balls heavy, dick thickening, and the slow movements Jack made had David bucking up against his hand, trying to increase the friction between them. 

When David started biting his lip, Jack increased his speed, tightened his hand around David's full, hard dick and David stiffened and came, eyes shut, a prayer of pleading sounds spilling from him. 

He smiled lazily at Jack, and then made a face when Jack wiped his hand clean in between David's thighs. 

Jack, amused, asked, “I want to do something. Will you let me? I'll get you even more messy.”

David yawned. “I trust you. What have you got in mind?”

Jack reached down and grabbed the oil bottle from the floor. He pushed the covers back so that David was free of them and then started squirting and rubbing oil on David's inner thighs. David watched him, bemused.

“Ever hear of frottage?” 

“Wasn't that something ancient Greeks did?”

“Think so. A guy I met at a bar near Oak Street Beach showed me.” He closed the bottle and laid it within reach on the bed. He rolled on top of David and told him, after he'd placed his erection in between David's slippery thighs. “Tighten up on me.” David did. “Ah, Jesus, you feel really good.” He started thrusting in between David's legs.

“God, you feel great.” He was brushing David's balls with his movements and he felt David's penis against his belly. It was probably too soon for David to come again, but this would keep the old home fires burning till David could get hard.

Then Jack stopped thinking about much at all.

* * * 

They'd both gone back to sleep after the morning's lovemaking, so they didn't get packed as fast as they'd planned. Jack told David he had one last stop to make before they headed west to California. 

Jack and David wrestled his mattress out into the hallway, where it would be picked up by its new owner. “My last paycheck. Mark said he'd have it ready at the front desk. It won't take but a minute for me to grab it.” 

“Okay. I'll just stay in the car, though.”

Finally, the car was packed, pizza eaten, the counters wiped, trash dumped, and Jack dropped the key in his landlady's mail box. Jack took one last look at the building he'd called home for the last eight years and decided he really wasn't going to miss it at all. 

He found a spot on the street to park a little ways down from the Register and walked quickly into the building. He gave a careless wave to Flora at the front desk as he approached her.

“Hello, Jack McGee. Remember me?”

“Funny, Jack. It's only been a day or so since you quit. Ah, Mark Roberts said when you came by this morning for me to tell you to sit tight. He wants to talk to you. Said it was important.”

She handed him an envelope and Jack could tell it was cash. Huh. Mark must have decided that it would be easier for Jack that way, since he'd mentioned he was closing his accounts.

Flora called up to Mark's office, then went back to flipping through People magazine. Jack had read that issue on Monday, the day before his prelim on the twentieth. Mark Frankel had done a nice job with the article about ex-congressman Robert Bauman's struggles to accept being homosexual. It had been kind of freeing for the guy to just admit that he liked men. Jack felt the same way.

He decided to touch base with the editors at People. Maybe he could do some freelance work for them, write stories that had a lot more social relevance than what he'd been forced to churn out for the Register. 

He tucked the envelope into his jacket and went to stand by the windows, hands in his pockets, watching people walking up and down the street. He could see his car, and everything looked fine. He'd left David sitting quietly in the passenger seat reading a book snatched from Jack's shelves for the trip. He idly speculated about what Mark wanted to talk about that hadn't been covered on Wednesday. Nothing came to mind, though. Mark had offered to be a reference for Jack and told him to call him when he settled in a place. Jack hadn't mentioned anything about David, just that he was ready to do something different with his life and his career.

He started daydreaming about what his next book should be about, when he felt his arm taken in a firm hold.

“Jack, walk with me.” Mark tugged him toward the door and Jack wondered what the hell was going on. Mark was a laid back kind of guy, usually. Something big must be up. He felt his gut lurch. 

“What's this about, Mark?”

Mark waited until they were outside the building. “I see your car. I'll walk you to it.” 

“That's all right. Just, what's going on?”

Mark untucked a paper from under his arm and handed it to Jack. It was the Limelite.

“Checking out the competition, Mark?” 

Mark gave him the look that meant Jack needed to stop stomping on Mark's last nerve. “This is today's paper. Read the story at the bottom of the first page. Joe Arnold wrote it.” Arnold had jumped over to the Limelite after Jack had exposed him for the unprincipled hack that he was for the scams he'd done on restaurants like Bruno's, in order to boost his career. 

Jack unfolded the paper and moved to stand next to the wall, out of the way of people walking past.

David's face and his own, in separate photographs, jumped out at him. He scanned the headline. _“Man Declared Dead Six Years Ago Identified as the Hulk._ ” 

He read through the first part of the article quickly. Stella Verdugo had gone to the Limelite, stating that the National Register had refused to investigate her claim that the man who changes into the Hulk had testified for Jack McGee at the preliminary hearing regarding murder charges in the death of Emerson Fletcher. 

He looked at Mark, who shrugged. “I tried to warn you this morning but your phone was disconnected. That woman called me, and I said we'd look into it, to appease her. She was angling for the old reward, and was quite put out when I told her we wouldn't pay her for the Hulk's name. I guess when she didn't see the story the next day, she called the Limelite. Joe would have jumped at the chance to smear your name all over their paper.”

Jack, feeling as numb as he had in the courtroom, made himself read the rest of the article. Damn Stella's memory anyway. _”I knew I'd seen that handsome gentleman Mr. McGee was talking to after court, and I finally remembered. Mr. Fletcher, bless his soul, had said his name was Doctor David Banner, after I pointed him out as the man I'd seen change into the Hulk. I'd forgotten that until I saw his face and the nice man in charge of court records told me David Banner testified for Mr. McGee._ ”

Another witness, a deputy handling security at the courthouse, had spoken to the Limelite anonymously upon being shown David Banner's and Jack McGee's photos. _”Yeah, I remember those two. It looked like they were having an argument, and I thought I might have to go over there, tell them to can it, but then they started kissing instead. I kept an eye on them, in case the PDA got out of hand, but they behaved themselves._ ” 

The article was continued on the third page, and recapped David Banner's career and supposed death in a lab fire. It also covered Jack McGee's obsession with the Hulk and John Doe, the man who changed into the Hulk. Joe had written that the search for John Doe had driven the National Register reporter for years, until last year when the story had been dropped.

Arnold had left the readers reasonably convinced that Jack had, in fact, discovered who the Hulk really was some time ago. Instead of writing the story he'd been promising readers for years, he'd become homosexual lovers with the man. 

Jack folded the paper and looked at Mark. “Aren't you going to ask if it's true?”  
Mark snorted. “I know it's true. I knew as soon as I got the write-up on your court case. Who do you think took out Doctor Banner's name?”

“Mark...”

“Jack, after hearing you go on about your obsession for years, I recognized who he was. It didn't take a genius to figure out then that he was your John Doe and hadn't died in that lab fire. And you've been in love with your John Doe since you two were on that mountain. I know you tried to hide that, probably even from yourself, but you gave it away a hundred different times.”

“I did?”

“Jack, I've never seen you so driven about anything as when that pyscho hunter went after your John Doe to kill him.”

“So when I let you talk me out doing any more Hulk stories, you were just playing along?” Jack crossed his arms and tucked his hands in tight. He'd had no idea he'd been so transparent to Mark. 

Mark's thick eyebrows hiked upwards. “Sure I played along. Jack, did you think I was joking all those times I suggested you talk to a headshrinker about being so obsessed with the Hulk?”

“Ahhh, Mark. No, I didn't think you meant it.” 

“I thought it was a good thing for you to drop the story and I figured it was because you'd realized who John Doe really was. You were different after you came back from the Banner funerals, so I thought your plan had worked. You found him when he came to the funerals, but you decided to let him go, didn't you?”

“I promised him I wouldn't do the story. Mark, it was my fault he became a fugitive. I insisted to the cops that it was the Hulk who was responsible for the deaths in the lab fire. I was wrong. David, the Hulk, tried to save Elaina Marks.”

Mark raised his eyebrows again. “Apparently you're forgiven, since he put himself on the line to testify as your alibi, and he seems fine with kissing you.”

“We became friends again, after he saw I was serious about not doing the story, but I didn't ask him to come to the preliminary hearing. He did that on his own, and it was the first time I'd seen him since his father's and sister's funerals. We, ah, well...” Jack floundered to a stop, not sure how much Mark wanted to know about him and David.

“Mazel Tov. But Jack, Stella Verdugo's blabbing his secret to the Limelite isn't your only problem. I received a call from the Army this morning.”

“The Army?”

“Yes. They wanted to talk to you, and when I told them you weren't employed any longer here, they wanted your address. I told them you'd moved, and I didn't have one. The Major I talked to said he was sending some of his men to comb through our morgue for every story you'd ever done on the Hulk. I thought you should know.”

Jack felt his stomach drop. “Mark, David's sure that they want to do experiments on him, not cure him. It's one of the reasons he's stayed in hiding. He's afraid that if he's captured they'll want to reproduce the accident that made him into the Hulk.”

“You'd better tell him then. That's him in your car, right?”

“Yes. We're leaving Chicago.”

“Jack, if they're serious about finding you, they'll be looking for your car.”

“Right. It's okay, I know a guy who can help with that. Mark, you've been a great friend and a good editor. Thank you. And thank you for killing the story.”

He shook Mark's hand, and then Mark drew him into a hug. 

Mark said, stepping back from Jack, “When Steinhauer finds out we were scooped by the Limelite, he's going to blow his top. I won't be able to deflect any future stories on the Hulk or you.”

“I know. Besides, he's been less than fond of me since Patty and I went out a few times.”

“I told you dating the boss's daughter was a bad move. So is going on the run with a fugitive. Sure you don't want to just stay here and weather this storm? The Army might question you, but that's all they can do.”

“I'm serious about David. I want to be with him. He's a good man, Mark, and he makes me be a better person.”

“Then good luck. I've got to get back inside before a search party comes looking for me. Take care, Jack.”

He smiled, squeezed Jack's arm and walked away. Jack watched him enter the building, and then he noticed three men in army uniforms walking down the sidewalk opposite to where he was standing.

He flattened himself against the wall, and watched, his heart beating faster, as they entered the Register. 

This was what David lived with all the time, this fear of being found out. And now, it was going to be his life, too. Only, he could walk away from it, he had that choice.

David didn't have a choice. 

He looked over at his car and saw that David was watching him. Jack gave him a little wave and, looking to make sure nobody was paying any attention to him, he walked swiftly back to David, feeling a pang that he'd have to sell his car. Ricky Sweeney would give him a decent price for his Comet GT. He'd pay in cash, once Jack hinted that he had some gambling debts to pay off right away, and that it would be better not to have any records from bank transactions.

He got in the car and started the engine. He pulled out and took a left at the next corner, to head over to Ricky's place.

David was staring at him, and then that resigned look settled on his face again. Jack reached over and grabbed David's hand, steering with his left. 

“Don't you look that way, David Banner. Yes, we've got trouble, but you're not alone anymore, understand? And save the speech I know you'll want to give, that I should let you go off by yourself. If you try to sneak off and leave me behind, I'll just follow you again. And you know I can do it.”

“Jack, you... okay.” He smiled ruefully at him. “I don't want bloodhound McGee on my trail again. But, what's happened? I could tell by the look on your face that it's not good.”

“Stella happened. She remembered that Fletcher slipped up and said your name in her hearing. Probably when he first spotted you, I'm betting. Mark, he was a pal and he tried to scuttle the story when she called him about recognizing you, but Stella went to the Limelite instead. You know them?”

“Another tabloid.”

“Yes, and they're the paper that paid La Fronte to kill you.”

“Oh, right.”

“I wrote about that but maybe you didn't get a chance to read it. Also, the Army has caught on and is deep in the morgue at the Register now, collecting all my old Hulk stories. Mark said they're looking for me. We're going to sell the car to a guy I know, and he'll give me cash. Then I don't know. Should we grab a bus, or just hitchhike?”

He let go of David's hand and handed him the paper. “Story's on the bottom of the first page.”

David sighed when he spotted their pictures and read the headline. “I guess it's a gamble about going back to my job. Jack, the Limelite doesn't have much of a circulation in California. I've, uh, become pretty familiar with tabloids since the first time you wrote about the Hulk. How likely is it that more mainstream papers would pick up the story?”

“In the past, I'd say not at all. But this time, your name's on record because you testified for me, and people can confirm that it was you in court. The fact that you've been supposedly dead all these years is intriguing, so yeah, other papers with a better reputation might run something. What do you want to do about your job at the Joshua...”

“The Joshua-Lambert Institute.” 

“Yeah.”

David bit his lip. “The gamma transponder could reverse the radiation changes made to my body, but it's nowhere near being finished.”

“Can they do it without you?”

“Without trying to brag or anything, if I'm not there to guide the research, I'm not sure the project will be successful. I guess that until we find out for sure that I'm compromised there, that I should go back and hope that nobody connects David Banion with David Banner.”

“You going to talk to your informant again?”

“Mm-hm. I'll call when we get to Los Angeles, talk to Anton again. If the Army or reporters have come to the Institute, he'll be bursting to tell me.”

“And if they do know? How do you feel about Costa Rica? Get out of US territory. Drink rum on the beach.”

David's eyes looked less wary, less haunted. He smiled at Jack and slapped his hand on Jack's thigh.

“I guess we'll see. Right now, let's dump your car and I think we'd better hitchhike. Too many chances that people on a bus leaving from Chicago might have seen the paper. We can mail your things to my apartment, if you want. I had the post office hold my mail, so if my cover is blown, we can just pick them up there.”

David's expression turned serious again. “Jack, are you really sure this is how you want to live your life? Never knowing when you'll have to drop everything and leave behind people you've learned to care for, avoiding the cops, and the rest of what goes along with this kind of existence? I won't blame you if you want to go your own way, and if you wanted, I'd try to come by sometimes to see you. If you want.”

Jack skidded the car into a couple of parking spaces and turned off the engine. 

He put an arm around David and said, “Here's my answer.”

He kissed David, demanding, hungry, insatiable. David was panting a little when he let him go and his eyes, God, his eyes were huge.

Jack said, “My father always told me that home is where there's love. I'm sticking with you, got it? Thick and thin, better or worse, ups and downs, I'm with you. Do you want that, David? And don't you tell me what you think would be better for me. I can tell when people are lying.”

Jack saw the start of tears in David's beautiful eyes, but they didn't fall. David said softly, “I should lie to you. But like you told me once, I'm lousy at it. People are always figuring out eventually that I'm not what I seem. They think I'm mysterious or in trouble. Well, the trouble part is right. But you've had six years to see what kind of trouble I can be, and I'm so tired of not getting what I want, just little snatches here or there of a real life.”

David took Jack's hand. He laughed a little, his eyes still shining with unshed tears. 

“So I'll stick with you, John Patrick McGee. Through the ups and downs I know we'll have, through thick and thin, and God, I hope things get better, but if they don't then we'll take on whatever goes worse for us together.”

David pulled Jack closer and kissed him, and it was a promise and a pledge and David's lips felt so warm and soft and tasted as sweet as strawberries.

* * *

The bus had once carried hordes of screaming school kids. In its new reincarnation, it was boldly painted with a jungle scene with huge tropical flowers on one side and a beach scene with waves crashing and the moon overhead on the other. The driver pulled into a gas station off Interstate 10 in Los Angeles and most of the denizens spilled out, stretching and laughing, and heading for the bathrooms and buying snacks. They were a motley crew, Jack thought. He knew that constant smell from the back of the bus had been marijuana, but they were a nice bunch of kids, even if half of them were serious potheads. 

David was still in his seat behind him, talking to Moonchild, AKA Denise, a pregnant young woman who was going to a commune near Los Angeles. After she and the rest of the hippies who'd picked them up in Chicago went to a Jerry Garcia concert on October first, that is. 

They'd been traveling with these Deadheads for a week, but they were getting off the bus here. David was going to call his job, talk to Anton and see if it was safe for him to return to work. Jack had bought mainstream papers wherever they'd stopped and had read a couple of articles with David's picture and a small story about his surfacing after being declared dead so many years ago. None of them mentioned that he was the Hulk. Well, the Register and the Limelite had gone to town about it. But even they hadn't written anything in the last two days. 

Jack grabbed their shared bag and joined the others milling around in the parking lot.  
River came over and gave him a hug. “Hey man, good traveling with you. Thanks for throwing in on the gas money.”

“Yeah, well, have fun at your concert. Don't get busted, okay?”

“I'm with you on that. Man, jail is such a drag.”

Jack nodded. The boy had that right. 

“You and David take care. Hey, did I tell you my brother is gay?”

“Is that so.”

It was funny how people felt the need to tell him about their gay relatives and gay or lesbian friends. 

David helped Moonchild out of the bus and kissed her on the cheek. Their fellow travelers gravitated towards him and started saying goodbye with hugs and kisses. David caught Jack's eye and Jack walked over to the group. He said his own goodbyes, then he took David's hand and they walked away from the group.

They found a pay phone on the edge of the parking lot, and waited for the woman using it to finish her call. She didn't look to be in any sort of a hurry.

David dropped to the ground and sat cross-legged. He closed his eyes and started taking deep slow breaths. Jack knew he was preparing himself for bad news. 

Jack noticed that some of David's shirt buttons had come undone, exposing more of David's chest than he normally showed. David was sexy like that, and the best part was that he wasn't even aware of it. If Jack said anything, he knew that David would look down in surprise, and then button his shirt.

They'd hadn't done much on the trip out to the West coast; they'd had no real privacy since everybody slept on the bus or next to the bus when they'd pulled into campgrounds. He'd slipped his hand inside David's shirt a few times to tease him, and they'd slept close to each other. During the campfires they'd had, David had sat between Jack's legs and leaned against him, Jack's arms around him. They listened to the music and watched the kids pass joints around the circle to each other.

Late one night he and David had stayed at the campfire after the kids had all gone back on the bus or had crawled into sleeping bags away from the fire. Jack had gotten out his Hulk file from David's bag, and the two of them had burned it, paper by paper, watching the flames consume the stories and photos of the Hulk. They did it partly for security, but mostly as a ritual, saying goodbye to the past. They didn't know where the future would take them, but they would take what joy they could from the present. They'd sat together afterwards, David's arms around him. Watching the fire burn down to coals, they remembered campfires on a mountain where they'd first given each other pleasure amidst their struggle to survive.

* * *

The kids piled back on the bus. Some of them hung out the windows and waved goodbye to Jack and David, and the driver saluted them with the horn as the bus pulled back on the road. 

Jack wondered if he could work this experience into a story. Ken Kesey and Tom Wolfe had done it with the Merry Pranksters' epic bus trips but it wasn't the sixties anymore. Still, he'd met some characters on the bus, and maybe he'd borrow Willie Joe's dreadlocks or the way Shana had played the guitar and sang old folksongs in the evenings. 

The woman hung up the phone and stomped away, fighting tears, her face red. David, if he'd seen her, might have asked her if there was something he could do to help. Jack was content to let her go, but because he knew David would do it, he asked her if she was okay, as she walked past him to the cars.

She stopped, startled, and wiped her eyes. “No. But, thanks.” She gave him a tremulous smile, got into her car, and waved goodbye to him. 

Another story to be told. The world was full of them. And now the next chapter of his and David's story was waiting to unfold.

He dug a couple of quarters out of his pocket and crouched down next to David. 

“Davy. Time to call.”

David opened his eyes and breathed out a deep sigh. Jack stood up and offered his hand; David grabbed it and pulled himself up.

They walked over to the payphone and Jack gave him the quarters. David had so much to lose if his identity was known at the Institute. The gadget he was designing was his best hope to keep the Hulk from ever emerging again. Jack doubted that the rest of the team would be able to make it work without David's quiet guidance. 

David gave him an uncertain, rueful look, rolled his shoulders, took a deep breath, and stepped inside the phone booth. 

Jack touched his arm. “Wait.” 

He took David's hand, closed it around the quarters, and kissed his fingers.

He said, “For luck.” 

David's mouth quirked up in a wistful, skeptical smile and he dropped the first quarter into the slot.

* * * 

The End.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Story cover: For I Believe in Harbors at the End](https://archiveofourown.org/works/750444) by [Teaotter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/pseuds/Teaotter)




End file.
